Calif. tech giant Qualcomm lays off 1,250 workers, 194 in Bay Area

Qualcomm, the tech giant known best for its dominance of the smartphone chip industry, is laying off 1,258 California workers, according to documents submitted to the California Employment Development Department. The documents — known as WARN notices after the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, which mandates companies give 60 days’ notice to employees before they are let go — were filed Wednesday. 

Overall, Qualcomm will deliver pink slips to 194 workers in the Bay Area and 1,064 in San Diego, beginning around Dec. 13. Qualcomm’s layoffs will include several high-ranking executives and hundreds of engineers, according to the notices.

The notice for Qualcomm’s Santa Clara layoffs lists more than 150 engineering roles, including an engineering vice president. Hundreds more will lose their jobs in San Diego, as will smaller groups of business analysts, assistants and product managers, the notice says; eight San Diego-based vice presidents will also be laid off.

As of Sept. 25, 2022, Qualcomm had approximately 51,000 employees, the vast majority of whom worked for the chipmaker full-time, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission from this January. This is the second major job cut of 2023 for Qualcomm: In May, the company laid off 415 San Diego workers and 84 from the Bay Area, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported.

The job cuts come amid wider tech industry cutbacks this year, and shrinking revenues at the chipmaker, specifically. Qualcomm makes billions of dollars a year from the design and sale of smartphone chips, but lower demand for the devices has eaten away at profits. Meanwhile, Apple is fighting to develop its own version of a cellular modem chip and end its longtime reliance on Qualcomm, with whom the Cupertino company has battled in court and in the press.

Qualcomm floated a hint about these layoffs in August, amid its statements about the past quarter’s financial earnings. The filing says that “given the continued uncertainty in the macroeconomic and demand environment,” the company expected to take “restructuring actions to enable continued investments.” The filing added that the actions would likely “consist largely of workforce reductions.”

Qualcomm did not immediately respond to SFGATE’s request for comment Thursday.

Hear of anything happening at Qualcomm or another tech company? Contact tech reporter Stephen Council securely at [email protected] or on Signal at 628-204-5452.