Intel headcount in 2022 was 131,900. Intel’s projected headcount for 2025 is 75,000. Intel fired 43% of its staff over the course of 3 years (when approximating natural retirements at zero and assuming a stop in new employments).
Not sure if you intentionally picked the all time high headcount, but you did.
Intel's headcount was relatively stable between 100-110k people between 2014 and 2021 [0]. So, getting down to 75k is definitely still a major reduction, but 2022 was also an outlier. A lot of companies overhired during Covid, and Intel particularly was the beneficiary of WFH pulling in a lot of corporate spending on laptops etc.
INTC was clearly inflated in 2022 - it rose up with all the COVID hype, so yes, it is misleading. It's like looking at Gamestop stock right when it was artificially boosted by Wallstreetbets, and saying "Look at its decline!"
There's a difference between "misleading" and "wrong". One can be factually correct while still misleading. It is the skillset of lawyers and journalists.
And who did they fire? Everyone with longevity and experience. Makes sense from an accountant’s perspective. Those would be the people with the highest salaries. Doesn’t make sense from a technical perspective.
Intel is/was a Bureaucratic hell hole. The people with longevity and experience definitely needed to be on the chopping block. Time for some creative destruction over there, the longest tenured are the ones who set the culture and the culture was crap.
It's honestly impressive. Even during the major tech cuts of 2022-2023, I think many companies ended up about the same size or a even little larger over the course of a year, due to all the other hiring happening and the fact that the cuts may have partially overlapped with existing performance management anyway. 43% an incredible shrinkage for any company in such a short timescale.
