As the global economic recession continues to take effect, the list of technology companies that are feeling the squeeze continues to grow. After making minor cutbacks in November 2008, AMD has announced plans to cut a further 1100 employees, equating to around 9% of its global staff.
Earlier this month, Nvidia warned that it would soon be reporting as much as a 50% drop in revenue over previous periods. A few days ago, Intel also announced that its fourth quarter profits fell around 90% from previous quarters. The list of tech companies biting the bullet seems to be growing everyday with no clear end in sight.
Over the past year, AMD has already let go of around 2 200 employees. The latest announcement will take the figure up to over 3 300 people retrenched in the past year, amounting to an approximate 23% downsizing.
AMD attributes a large portion of its losses to the $5.6 billion debt that its acquisition of ATi left them with.
Not only will AMD be retrenching employees, but they are also cutting back on salaries across the board.
AMD’s CEO and executive chairman will be taking a 20% reduction to their salaries, with lower level employees seeing a reduction of 10% and 5%. Other high ranking employees, such as vice presidents will take a 15% salary hit.
In the past year, AMD’s share price has fallen almost 70%.
