Intel is reportedly laying off several hundred employees at its R&D centers in Israel.
The job cuts, first reported by DigiTimes, follow the chipmaker’s revelation via a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it had reduced its headcount by 16,500.
Intel has been operating in Israel since 1974 and currently employs around 11,700 people, primarily split between R&D and manufacturing. The company’s 7,800 R&D workers sit across three sites in Haifa, Petah Tikva, and Jerusalem, with the centers focusing on CPUs, AI hardware, and software; communications and AI solutions; and communications, software, and cybersecurity, respectively.
The report did not provide further details about the cuts but its thought that all three R&D centers will see their headcounts reduced.
In June, it was reported that Intel had postponed construction on its $25 billion semiconductor manufacturing plant in Kiryat Gat, Israel, despite having already secured a $3.2 billion grant from the Israeli government to expand its chip manufacturing plant in the city.
At the time, Intel said the decision was based on “business conditions, market dynamics, and responsible capital management,” adding that “Israel continues to be one of our key global manufacturing and R&D sites and we remain fully committed to the region.”
Last week the company posted a $16.6bn loss in Q3 2024, the largest quarterly loss ever recorded by the chip maker. Of the recorded losses, $2.8bn related to its wide-sweeping job cuts, with the total costs related to the layoffs expected to reach $3bn.
