Intel layoffs: new CEO confirms job cuts. INTC stock sinks after earnings

Yesterday was an eventful day for shareholders and employees of Intel Corp. The American chipmaker reported its Q1 2025 results while its new CEO, Lip-Bu Tan, confirmed earlier reports that Intel would be laying off employees. Here’s what you need to know about those layoffs and the latest movement in Intel’s stock price.

New Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan confirms job cuts

The most devastating news to come out of Intel yesterday was that earlier reports were correct and the company would be laying off employees.

On Wednesday, Bloomberg reported that Intel was preparing to lay off up to 20% of its current workforce. Given that Intel reported having 108,900 employees at the end of 2024, that 20% cut would equate to roughly just under 22,000 people being laid off. The 22,000 layoff figure, if accurate, would be larger than Intel’s last round of mass layoffs in August 2024, when then-Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger announced 15,000 job cuts.

Intel’s CEO confirmed the new job cuts in an email he sent to employees on April 24, which Intel then later published on its website. In the email, Tan laid out his desire for Intel to once again become an engineering-focused company so it can better compete in the chip marketplace and begin innovating again.

But in order to refocus the company to one that is engineering-first, Tan said Intel will need to find ways to reduce its existing costs. Some of that cost reduction will come from layoffs. In a poorly subtitled section of his email called “Flattening the Organization,” Tan said he was “a big believer in the philosophy that the best leaders get the most done with the fewest people.”

In order to refocus the company on engineering, Tan said, Intel would need to remove its organizational complexity and unnecessary bureaucracy. To this end, Tan said there was “no way around the fact that these critical changes will reduce the size of our workforce.”

However, Tan didn’t state the size of this workforce reduction—neither in terms of the number of employees that will lose their jobs, nor in the percentage of Intel’s workforce that would be let go. That means it is currently unknown if Bloomberg’s 20% figure was correct.

Fast Company has reached out to Intel for comment on the number of upcoming layoffs.

What Tan did confirm is that the layoffs would happen in Q2—which is Intel’s current quarter. He also said that the company “will move as quickly as possible [with the layoffs] over the next several months.”

Intel stock price sinks after Q1 earnings results

But Intel employees weren’t the only ones who got bad news yesterday. Investors did, too. After Intel released its Q1 2025 numbers yesterday, the company’s stock (Nasdaq: INTC) is currently down a significant amount in premarket trading this morning. As of the time of this writing, INTC shares are currently down around 6.7% to just above $20 per share. 

INTC shares had gained 4.3% yesterday to close at $21.49 before the company revealed its Q1 performance.

Unfortunately, investors usually see layoffs as a good thing for a company because when a company lets go of workers, it can save a lot of money. Fewer employees mean fewer associated costs. Yet still, INTC shares are down after the company’s Q1 results and layoffs confirmation.

But why?

Intel announced that its Q1 revenue was $12.7 billion—essentially flat year-over-year. It also reported a loss equal to 19 cents a share. But those disappointing numbers didn’t seem to bother investors as much as Intel’s quarterly forecast for its current Q2.

Intel issued revenue guidance for its Q2 of $11.2 billion to $12.4 billion. But as Reuters notes, the analysts’ average estimate was $12.82 billion. Many investors thus saw the guidance as an admission from Intel that its turnaround effort will take time.

The company is largely seen to have fumbled the opportunity to take advantage of the AI boom in the early years of this decade, and thus seeded AI chip dominance to Nvidia. Intel’s Tan is now hoping to make Intel into an AI chip juggernaut, but the company’s guidance suggests that’s not going to happen overnight—and certainly not in the next quarter.

Until yesterday, Intel was one of the few major tech companies in America whose shares were up for the year. INTC closed yesterday at $21.49, up 7.18% for the year. But with its nearly 7% premarket decline this morning, INTC shares are now essentially flat for the year to date.

Looking out to a longer timeline, INTC shares have performed much more poorly. As of yesterday’s close, INTC shares had fallen nearly 38% over the past 12 months. Over the past five years, INTC shares were down nearly 64% as of yesterday’s close.

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