According to an internal notice obtained by Reuters, chip manufacturer Qualcomm plans to downsize its global workforce based on employee performance.
On Monday, CEO Cristiano Amon informed staff that these redundancies, which will begin in November, follow the completion of the annual reviews. The aim of this initiative is to foster a stricter, performance-driven work environment by dismissing employees who have repeatedly failed to meet company standards.
Although the exact number of roles affected was not mentioned in the memo and the company has not yet issued an official statement, Qualcomm employed around 52,000 people worldwide as of last September.
Amon stated that the selection will depend on current organisational needs, the required expertise and shifting business priorities. According to him, Qualcomm must align its workforce with these changing objectives in order to remain successful.
The staffing measure comes at a challenging time for the chip manufacturer. Demand for consumer electronics is falling due to rising memory costs.
Recent financial reports from July showed that profits fell short of analysts’ forecasts and that revenue from the partnership with Apple declined faster than expected. To counter this, Qualcomm is now steering its strategy towards AI data centres and other non-mobile sectors.
The company expects these new activities to generate the bulk of its revenue by the 2027 financial year, instead of traditional smartphone components.
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