Silicon Valley firms plan layoffs
“As we move into 2020, our business units are focusing their resources on areas where we have the greatest opportunity for growth and, as part of that, some are planning to eliminate roles associated with projects that are no longer priorities,” Intel spokeswoman Nancy Sanchez wrote in an email.
Sanchez declined to provide a list of the eliminated jobs or details on the affected business units, which were not included in Intel’s filings. State and federal regulations require disclosure of the nature and number of eliminated jobs.
Intel recently paid $2 billion for an Israeli company, Habana Labs, which uses artificial intelligence to bolster data centers. Intel’s Data Center Group was by far its top performer among its business groups, according to the company’s most recent quarterly report. The unit had revenue of $7.2 billion in the last quarter of 2019, an increase of almost 20% over the same period in 2018.
Sanchez said the layoffs involve less than 1% of the company’s nearly 110,000 employees worldwide.
VMware: The Palo Alto cloud computing provider and software maker will lay off more than 200 employees in April, including workers at the executive and director level.
About three quarters of the employees who will lose their jobs are based in Palo Alto, with the rest working remotely, according to a notice filed by the company.
The layoffs include a divisional chief technical officer and directors of research and development, database architecture and digital marketing, along with numerous technical staff and engineers.
“This is a part of regular workforce rebalancing that ensures resources across VMware’s global businesses and geographies are aligned with strategic objectives and customer needs,” company spokesman Michael Thacker said in an email.
VMware has more than 30,000 employees worldwide.
Computing giant Dell owns a majority share in the company, which recently announced it will acquire network analytics provider Nyansa, also of Palo Alto.
Xilinx: The San Jose chipmaker will lay off more than 120 employees at its headquarters and at other offices in the U.S. and abroad.
The company is well known for pioneering the fabless model of manufacturing, where companies design chips but outsource their fabrication to other companies’ factories.
The largest categories of jobs the company will cut are software engineers and design engineers, along with sales and marketing roles.
The company, which did not return a request for comment, has more than 4,000 employees, according to Forbes.
Big Switch Networks: The Santa Clara cloud computing and data center networking company notified state and local officials it will lay off 60 employees pending a merger with Arista Networks, also based in Santa Clara.
An Arista spokeswoman characterized Big Switch’s move as a “preacquisition” restructuring.
Big Switch did not respond to requests for comment.