Intel to Lay Off up to 19,000 Employees After Receiving $8.5 Billion for the CHIPS Act

[sand warren]

https://www.theverge.com/2024/8/1/24210656/intel-is-laying-off-over-10000-employees-and-will-cut-10-billion-in-costs

I’m fuming right now. The pipeline of lobbying to legislation is so broken.

We gave this company $8.5B of taxpayer funding to improve their business model and they’re choosing to do so by “streamlining their business model” to this extent. Government subsidies for oil and natural gas companies are bad enough, but at least those subsidies create jobs and aren’t working to create technologies that will economically-invalidate entire career paths for billions of people.

This just feels like theft, and I think it is.

PS: this is after all the Raptor Lake recalls as well, so Intel’s strategy to fix their technology is just to fire everyone and hope for the best (while probably replacing them with AI). Christ.

[frail ginkgo]

I have a friend who works at Intel. They're all aware that the company isn't doing so hot lately, so the layoffs are not a surprise. I didn't know about the subsidies, but I don't think it's enough on its own to keep them afloat.

[sand warren]

They’re actively building FABs while laying employees off. They’re expanding their square footage and output potential while reducing headcount at the same time.

None of it makes any sense except with assuming mass layoffs are coming from AI-replacement, then those saved payrolls are being used for construction.