CEO Rory Read Sanctions New Round of AMD Job Cuts – Report

AMD is reportedly set to shed between 20 and 30 percent of its workforce after it lowered sales and earnings forecasts.

A company insider told AllThingsD that between 2,200 and 3,300 people could lose their jobs and the announcement could be made as early as this week. AMD is due to reveal its quarterly results on Thursday, although this could be made the following week.

The majority of AMD job cuts are set to take place in AMD’s engineering and sales divisions, areas which have been granted a stay of execution in previous rounds of job cuts.

AMD job cuts

Sources said the mood around the company was grim and the cuts could be sufficient enough to suggest that the company might be forced to scale back some of its product offerings. However another person said the cuts could be lower than expected.

AMD is said to have brought in a team of business consultants from McKinsey & Company and BCG for advice on how to the handle the downsizing and to determine its future strategy.

The redundancies are the second major round of job cuts since former Lenovo COO and President Rory Read replaced the outgoing Dirk Meyer as CEO in August 2011. Last September, the company reduced its workforce by around ten percent, in an effort to reduce operating expenses.

The chipmaker said the savings would put it in a better position to pursue initiatives around low-power computing, emerging markets and the cloud.

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