FILE: The Qualcomm logo is located in front of one of the chip company’s locations in Santa Clara, California.
Andrei Sokolov/Picture Alliance/Getty Images
Qualcomm, the tech giant best known for its dominance in the smartphone chip industry, is laying off 1,258 California workers, according to documents submitted to the California Department of Employment Development. The documents — known as WARN notices under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, which requires companies to give employees 60 days’ notice before laying them off — were filed Wednesday.
In total, Qualcomm will supply pink slips to 194 workers in the Bay Area and 1,064 in San Diego starting around December 13th. Qualcomm will lay off several senior executives and hundreds of engineers, according to the announcements.
Qualcomm’s layoff notice in Santa Clara listed more than 150 engineering positions, including a vice president of engineering. Hundreds more will lose their jobs in San Diego, as will smaller groups of business analysts, assistants and product managers, the release said; Eight San Diego-based vice presidents will also be fired.
As of September 25, 2022, Qualcomm had approximately 51,000 employees, the vast majority of whom worked full-time for the chipmaker, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission in January of this year. This is the second major job cuts of 2023 for Qualcomm: In May, the company laid off 415 workers from San Diego and 84 from the Bay Area, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported.
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The job cuts come amid broader cuts in the technology industry this year and, in particular, falling revenue at the chipmaker. Qualcomm makes billions of dollars annually from developing and selling smartphone chips, but lower demand for the devices is hurting profits. Meanwhile, Apple is struggling to develop its own version of a cellular modem chip and end its long-standing dependence on Qualcomm, with which the Cupertino company has feuded in court and in the press.
Qualcomm made a reference to these layoffs in August in its statements about last quarter’s financial results. The filing said that “given the ongoing uncertainty in the macroeconomic and demand environment,” the company expects to “take restructuring actions to enable further investment.” The filing goes on to say that the measures would likely “consist largely of staff reductions.”
Qualcomm did not immediately respond to SFGATE’s request for comment on Thursday.
Have you heard anything happening at Qualcomm or any other tech company? Contact tech reporter Stephen Council securely at [email protected] or via Signal at 628-204-5452.
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