AMD is firing 4% of its global workforce as it realigns in likely pursuit of all those AI dollars

AMD has reportedly confirmed plans to lay off fully 4% of its global workforce. A 2023 estimate put AMD's workforce at 26,000, so the firings look set to impact around 1,000 AMD employees.

It's not clear exactly what precipitated the move by AMD. According to WCCFTech, posts on AMD-themed message boards including Team Blind began to emerge, reporting job losses from several teams.

AMD was approached about the reports and confirmed that 4% of the global workforce was being let go. The company said the layoffs were due to "aligning our resources with our largest growth opportunities."

Taken at face value, the largest and most obvious "opportunity" for AMD is AI. So, the implication is that AMD is likely realigning resources for a more concerted assault on Nvidia's dominance in the megabucks datacenter GPU market.

AMD also explained that the move was part of "a number of targeted steps that will unfortunately result in reducing our global workforce by approximately 4%." AMD added it is "committed to treating impacted employees with respect and helping them through this transition."

Beyond that, the specifics aren't clear. We don't know whether any particular teams have taken the brunt of the layoffs or whether the axe has fallen more evenly across AMD's operations.

Worryingly, one obvious candidate for cuts might be gaming. At last count, AMD's gaming division, which includes PC graphics and custom chips for games consoles like Xbox and PS5, amounted to just 6.8% of AMD's overall revenues, and shrinking fast. At the very least, gaming hardly seems like one of AMD's "largest growth opportunities".

Slightly oddly, the news comes barely two weeks after AMD posted record revenues, in part boosted by the company's nascent AI GPU sales. However, AMD's share price has actually fallen since that announcement, largely because it came alongside guidance for the 4th quarter of 2024 that looked a fair deal less bullish.

As I write these words, AMD's share price is down from a recent peak of $166 on October 29 to $140 right now, a hefty 15% drop.

Of course, when it comes to layoffs, Intel has AMD thoroughly licked. In August, Intel revealed plans to lay off no fewer than 15,000 employees. Of course, Intel had a much larger initial employee base to begin with. So that amounted to 15% of its workforce. Still a major chunk, but not quite the decimation that 15,000 would represent in the context of AMD's 26,000-strong workforce.

Anyway, layoffs are truly horrible news for those directly involved, even if they are on occasion necessary. Here's hoping AMD doesn't need to let any more staff go and the "realignment" achieves the company's aims.