Confirming previous rumors, Intel has announced a major restructuring that will result in 12,000 of its employees being laid off by mid-2017. That will represent about 11% of the company's workforce.
The chip company says the move is part of its plans to "accelerate its evolution from a PC company to one that powers the cloud and billions of smart, connected computing devices." Intel says:
The data center and Internet of Things (IoT) businesses are Intel's primary growth engines, with memory and field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) accelerating these opportunities – fueling a virtuous cycle of growth for the company. These growth businesses delivered $2.2 billion in revenue growth last year, and made up 40 percent of revenue and the majority of operating profit, which largely offset the decline in the PC market segment.
Intel is expected to take a one-time charge of $1.2 billion during the second quarter of 2016 as part of the restructuring. It is expected to result in a savings of $750 million in 2016, with annual savings of $1.4 billion by mid-2017. The majority of the layoffs are expected to happen in the next 60 days.
