The technology sector is in a constant state of change, a fact that often has negative consequences for those employed in the industry. The latest casualties are 12,000 employees at Intel, which announced the job cuts Tuesday as part of a shift away from traditional desktop and laptop computers.
Intel joins several other major computer firms announcing large-scale job cuts in recent months. Earlier this year Dell Computer announced cuts totaling 10,000. In 2015, Hewlett-Packard shed 30,000 and Microsoft eliminated 7,800 positions, according to tracking by global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc.
Overall, the computer industry has announced 72,333 job cuts over the 12-month period ending March 31. The 17,002 job cuts announced by these firms in the first quarter of this year represents a 148-percent increase from the 6,860 cuts in the first three months of 2015.
“It would be wrong to assume that increased job cuts are a sign of weakness in the tech sector. The simple fact is that the industry is going through a transformation and companies either have to shift their focus or risk extinction. We will always need technology, but how we interact with it, as well as where and when we interact with it, are changing rapidly. As a result, we will continue to see a lot of job destruction, along with job creation, in the industry over the next several decades,” said John A. Challenger, chief executive officer of Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
