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Advanced Micro Devices Inc., mired in the continued IT spending slowdown and its ongoing battles with rival chip maker Intel Corp., on Thursday said it will slash 2,000 jobs—or about 15 percent of its global workforce—by the middle of next year.
The Sunnyvale, Calif., company said that about 1,000 workers were notified of their impending layoffs.
The job cuts come as no surprise, as company officials this fall have outlined plans to cut about $350 million in expenses in 2003. Layoffs were going to be one avenue for cutting costs, they said.
“As part of our ongoing strategy, we are taking decisive measures to reduce operating and capital expenditures,” President and CEO Hector Ruiz said in a prepared statement. “While painful and unfortunate, todays action will help to position AMD so that we can take full advantage of the eventual market recovery.”
AMD said that in connection with the job cuts, it expects to take a restructuring in the current quarter of several hundred million dollars.
Ruiz said the company was going to roll out “a number of intensely competitive products and solutions” over the next six months that will broaden the companys reach.
Last month, AMD announced it had lost more than $254 million in the third quarter amid a 34 percent drop in sales.
A month before, AMD closed two facilities in Austin, Texas, and laid off 2,300 workers, or about 15 percent of its work force. However, a spokesman said the closings and job cuts had more to do with the facilities themselves than with the economy.
About 90 percent of the work done at the two fabrication facilities involved AMD making chips for other companies. When demand from those companies started tailed off last year, it made no sense to keep those plants open, the spokesman said.