Qualcomm plans November job cuts after performance reviews

Qualcomm plans to start notifying employees in November that their jobs are being cut after annual employee reviews, according to an internal memo reviewed by Reuters. The cuts are global, and they fall on a company that employed about 52,000 people worldwide as of September last year, most of them full-time.

Chief executive Cristiano Amon called the move a "performance-focused reduction" and told staff the company was trying to build "a stronger performance culture" and address situations where it "has consistently fallen short of expectations."

The selection criteria are wider than the label. Business priorities, organizational needs, skills and expertise would all be considered in making the cuts, Amon wrote, and he tied them directly to how the company has changed. "As we have expanded the business, so have the competencies and skills we require," he wrote. "We must have the right people in the right roles so they can perform at their best and the company can continue to succeed."

That expansion has a direction. In its latest earnings report in late July, Qualcomm forecast quarterly profit below estimates and said revenue from Apple products would decline faster than expected. It also signaled that growth in data-center and other non-handset businesses would more than offset the lost revenue by fiscal 2027, and it expects the majority of its chip sales to come from businesses other than smartphones in that year as it moves into the AI data-center market, according to Reuters.

Read alongside that outlook, the memo suggests the review cycle is doing two jobs at once: removing people rated as underperforming, and reshaping a workforce built around smartphone chips for a company that expects most of its chip revenue to come from elsewhere. Amon's own wording puts skills and business priorities on the same list as performance.

The calendar fits the sequence. Qualcomm's financial year typically ends in late September; the annual reviews follow, and notifications are set to start in November.

Qualcomm is one of the world's biggest smartphone chipmakers, and it has been hit this year by a slump in consumer electronics sales as soaring memory prices weigh on demand in key markets. Its shares had risen just 1.5% in 2026 at the time of the report, against gains of more than 12% for the S&P 500 and nearly 60% for the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index.