Intel will reportedly fire fully 20% of its workforce and focus on ‘engineering’, a plan that sounds all too familiar at this point

Intel is planning to slash 20% of its workforce, or fully one in five employees. According to Bloomberg, Intel will announce the move later this week when it details its latest financial figures on Thursday.

Reportedly, the staff cuts will be pitched as part of a broader strategy to focus on engineering while streamlining operations and reducing bureaucracy. It’s not entirely clear whether these cuts will be on top of the 15% reduction in work force Intel announced in August last year, or if the new 20% figure incorporates those job losses in part or whole.

If the new cuts are entirely separate, that would mean around a third of Intel’s employees being let go, overall, since August 2024. The 15% cuts in August totalled around 17,500 workers, bringing Intel’s head count down to roughly 100,000.

A further 20% cut would see Intel’s workforce shrink to about 80,000. Intel’s head count peaked at 131,000 in 2022, according to Statistica. So, 80,000 would be a dramatic drop in just three or so years.

To put those numbers in to further context, AMD current has a little under 30,000 employees. Nvidia’s workforce, meanwhile, numbers roughly 35,000.

In other words, even after these mooted cuts, Intel will still be a very, very large operation with extensive human resources. After all, Intel not only has similar chip design operations as AMD and Nvidia. Uniquely, it also has its own chip production facilities, or fabs, something AMD and Nvidia lack.

This news comes just over a month after Intel appointed a new CEO, Lip-Bu Tan. Earlier this month, Tan conceded that Intel needed to “correct past mistakes” and promised a return to its roots as “an engineering first company.”

Of course, a return to an engineering focus was exactly what Intel’s previous CEO, Pat Gelsinger, had also promised. Reportedly, the Intel board did not feel that Gelsinger’s plan was moving fast enough. So, perhaps firing 20,000 employees within months of taking over is the kind of swift action Tan needs to maintain board confidence.

On the other hand, another massive head-count cull will hardly be confidence inspiring for investors and other outside observers. Whatever, one thing seems certain. If this latest news is true, things will likely get worse for Intel before they get better as the company goes through the painful process of shedding staff before rebuilding.