QUALCOMM TRIMS ITS SAN DIEGO WORKFORCE BY 153 JOBS
Company says it seeks to reduce costs amid slower demand
Qualcomm is laying off 153 workers in San Diego as the wireless technology giant seeks to reduce costs amid a global slowdown in smartphone demand.
The San Diego company filed Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN) paperwork with the state of California and local employment officials earlier this month giving advanced notice of the job cuts. The layoffs take effect in February.
A Qualcomm spokesperson declined to comment on the reduction, which amounts to about 1 percent of the company’s 12,500-person workforce in San Diego.
While not widespread, other local tech companies also have announced layoffs recently. TuSimple, a startup developing self-driving technology for semi-trucks, said Wednesday that it planned to cut its global workforce by 25 percent, or 350 jobs, to conserve cash.
TuSimple’s workforce reduction includes 143 layoffs at its San Diego headquarters and research and development facilities, according to a WARN Act filing.
In November, gene sequencing equipment giant Illumina said it was cutting its global workforce by 5 percent — including 207 jobs in San Diego — as sluggish demand from customers is expected to linger into 2023.
Qualcomm referred questions about its layoffs to statements that executives made during its most recent earnings conference call in November, where they announced a hiring freeze and lowered their smartphone sales forecast for 2022.
“We have planned spending reductions across our mature product areas and SG&A (sales, general and administra
hammered by higher mortgage rates arising from the Fed’s decision to raise its own benchmark rate seven times this year.
Thursday’s GDP report was the Commerce Department’s third and final look at the July-September quarter. The first look at the fourth quarter comes out Jan. 26. Forecasters surveyed by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia expect the economy to grow again the last three months of the year — but at a slower, 1 percent annual rate.
In its previous estimate of third-quarter growth, issued Nov. 30, the Commerce Department had pegged July-September growth at an annual rate of 2.9 percent. Behind the upgrade to Thursday’s 3.2 percent was stronger growth in consumer spending, revised up to a 2.3 percent annual rate from 1.7 percent in the November estimate.
“Despite a rapid increase in interest rates, the economy is growing and importantly, households are still spending,” Rubeela Farooqi, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics, said in a research note. “However, looking ahead, in 2023, we expect a slower growth trajectory.”
Inflation, which had not been a serious problem for four decades, returned in the spring of 2021. It was set off by an unexpectedly strong recovery from the coronavirus recession of 2020, fueled by massive government stimulus. The Fed was slow to recognize the severity of the inflation problem and only began raising rates aggressively in March.