Two major employers in the tech industry are preparing to make significant cuts to its employee numbers in the near future, according to reports.
BlackBerry will be shedding staff as it attempts to turn its
financial fortunes around, while
Qualcomm is reportedly planning to cull a considerable number of positions as part of a review of its current strategy, with up to ten percent of its workforce potentially facing the sack.
An emailed statement from BlackBerry spokesperson Kara Yi
to Bloomberg advises "As BlackBerry moves into the next stage of its turnaround, we remain focused on driving efficiencies across our global workforce. As a result, some employees have been impacted."
The number of positions and the timing of the job losses has not been revealed by the smartphone producer, which currently employs approximately 7,000 staff. The cuts are part of an overall effort by the manufacturer to restructure itself, with CEO John Chen recently claiming he believes the company will become
profitable again based on the firm's devices, and a refocus on enterprise and government customers.
BlackBerry CEO John Chen
According
to The Information, Qualcomm is looking to get rid of several thousand employees, and it may announce the job cuts later this week as part of its quarterly results. It will also be performing a "sweeping strategic review", reports
the Wall Street Journal, which will also look into the possibility of breaking itself up.
Qualcomm is supposedly doing this after a suggestion by hedge fund Jana Partners LLC, which owns stake worth more than $2 billion. The fund urged Qualcomm's board to "explore a breakup, cut costs, repurchase shares faster, and bring new blood to its board."
So far, it has introduced a $15 billion stock buyback scheme, and is readying itself for job losses, but the most intriguing option is the split. Currently, the company has a market capitalization of $104 billion with $26 billion in annual revenue and a yearly profit of $8 billion. While two thirds of the revenue stems from its extensive chip business, two thirds of its profit comes in from patent licensing, namely royalties from smartphone manufacturers using its technology. Qualcomm executives have previously considered such a split, and actually started to do so 15 years ago, only to stop after it had signed a number of major licensing deals.
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