Friday, February 10th 2023
Micron Getting Ready to Reduce Headcount at Idaho Fab
Back in December, Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra announced that the company would be laying off around 10 percent of its staff and according to the Idaho Statesman, Micron will start at its Boise, Idaho fab. This is despite the company investing US$15 billion in a new leading-edge fab there. That said, it doesn't look like Boise will see any huge cuts in staff, as Micron hasn't issued a WARN notice, which is required when a company is planning on laying off more than 500 people within a 30-day period.
Micron issued a statement earlier this week, saying that its layoffs are a combination of "voluntary attrition, workforce reductions and reduced external hiring," which tends to mean that third party contractors will bear the brunt of the layoffs. Micron is also said to be cutting executive salaries, while also suspending bonuses for employees across the board. Further cost reductions include a halted share buyback program and a reduced production output, the latter due to lower demand. Micron has some 49,000 employees globally, with some 6,000 located in Idaho. The company expects to have completed its job cuts by the end of this month.
Source:
Idaho Statesman
Micron issued a statement earlier this week, saying that its layoffs are a combination of "voluntary attrition, workforce reductions and reduced external hiring," which tends to mean that third party contractors will bear the brunt of the layoffs. Micron is also said to be cutting executive salaries, while also suspending bonuses for employees across the board. Further cost reductions include a halted share buyback program and a reduced production output, the latter due to lower demand. Micron has some 49,000 employees globally, with some 6,000 located in Idaho. The company expects to have completed its job cuts by the end of this month.
35 Comments on Micron Getting Ready to Reduce Headcount at Idaho Fab
Ex: Amazon had +65% employee headcount (!!!!) in 2021. These good times weren't going to last forever. Micron, also part of the tech field, got +11% in 2022 and +7% increase in 2021.
This -10% announcement from Micron puts their headcount still well above 2021 levels.
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Remember, during this time Micron lost products such as Optane. Despite losing product lines, Micron continued to hire at a high rate. Because... well... everyone else in Tech was doing good. We're just undergoing a natural boom/bust period (well, spurrned by the 2021 COVID19 Zoom meetings / work from home stuff). Now that all that is passing, we consumers don't need to buy quite as many computers as 2021 and its natural for the tech industry to shrink a bit. IMO anyway, but I don't think this is a political question. Its mildly predictable given the economic conditions.
We just aren't going to have as many Zoom meetings, virtual meetings, (etc. etc. etc.) as 2021. Life is opening back up, real life meetings are happening again, we're largely going back to the office. Tech, one of the "COVID19 winners", so to speak, will naturally decline in these conditions.
Bad calculus by management? Absolutely. Unexpected by every economist ever? Certainly not. Every industry but tech was in a downfall — not a coincidence as much as correlative.
I guess I’ll add that all of these people are super employable and will likely land a job at a startup or a more established division in their field, and have probably never applied for or even qualified for unemployment.
He'll probably have to deal with a higher unemployment later on, and there's still a lot of uncertainty on how the economy will shake out with the current high interest rate environment - inflation is falling but not enough because the economy is also not suffering enough, a necessary evil by design to bring inflation down.
A certain level of unemployment is not a bad thing either (and one could say the record lows right now aren't very good), a labour pool needs to exist to draw workers from, to have job rotation and to breed new business ideas.
This is all much more complicated than a simple soundbite of "lowest unemployment ever" and layoffs across the board
And if they did, where has it all gone to ?
I suspect, like most of the other benefactors, the majority of it went into the execs bank accounts (cause they're the ones who knew when the "pay cuts" were coming), lear jets, beach houses, expense accounts, etc....
It's a lot tougher to drop personnel in the EU than in US though.
Perfect example.
Yep prices are coming down to where they should of been at release.
Doesn't really help since boards and ddr5 memory is still high.
Personally I'm done I have to many EOLakes already :laugh:
Not quite seeing gpu prices are still dumb as hell.
I'd love to keep playing with releases but I won't support these money grubbing companies anymore they act just like scalpers.
Yep wouldn't doubt it
I personally haven't kept up with prices seeing I'm not in the market.
Yep only item I might be interested in is a new laptop but doubt it's going to be a intel system i already have four desktop intel and one very old lappy.
Next is more likely going to be amd.
The hospitality industry on the other hand is approximately 10% of the US economy. When we see mass layoffs in hospitality, then things are about to get bad quick.
I'm hoping gpu prices come down. I have no reason to believe they will. But maybe somehow tech layoffs - > cheap gpus
So yeah, no recession? Sure, whatever. Maybe if you earn above $50k a year, you really don't feel a thing.
Edit: Layoffs in the tech sector are a clear indication of a recession, as people don't have money to buy the gadgets that they did a year ago. No industry is a separate island.
I am not trying to argue which country is or will be in a recession sooner or later. Like Volcker in the 80's, the way to end inflation is to increase interest rates significantly which has a high chance of causing a recession. My argument is that tech alone is not a good indicator of what is to come.
Tech has a unique reliance on low interest rates and cheap loans. Not too long ago the US was experiencing record low interest rates. When interest rates are low, bonds pay very little. Tech is seen as a reletively safe space to park money as well as high growth. With low interest rates, tech had dramatically increased capital and liquidity.
Now that US interest rates are high and growing, other investments become preferable to tech. Capital is leaving tech with less liquidity. Investors are moving their money away from tech to take advantage of the high interest rates. This is happening shortly after the pandemic where tech saw dramatic growth from so many people working from home. Tech went on a hiring spree to support the increased demand from the pandemic.
The tech sector is in a reletively unique situation causing layoffs. Tech has a tiny amount of 1.5% workers in the US. You are right that no industry is an island. When Micron and all the other tech companies reduce labor, it is far less impactful than a larger industry. Hospitality has 10% of US workers. Hospitality has seen the fastest wage growth for low wage workers. Hospitality so far in 2023 cannot find enough people to hire. Tech alone is not a good indicator. Hospitality is a better one. Hospitity tells a very different story than tech. So no, the tech sector alone is not a clear indication of a recession.