NVIDIA announces worldwide job cuts
updated 04:40 pm EDT, Fri September 19, 2008
NVIDIA cuts 360 jobs
NVIDIA on Thursday announced that it would cut 360 jobs across its worldwide operations, which accounts for nearly 6.5 percent of its entire workforce. The company officially announced the cuts are being made to let it invest in key areas of growth, though they are likely related to the company’s recent financial trouble stemming from faulty graphics chips, the resulting lawsuit, and increased competition from the Radeon HD 4000-series graphics card. The job cuts are expected to take effect by October 26, with employees receiving severance packages, counseling and job placement services.
Despite the cutbacks, NVIDIA representatives said the company would continue to pour resources into its CUDA parallel computing technology and Tegra mobile single-chip computer. As a direct result of the job cuts, NVIDIA is expected to take a charge of between $7 and $10 million in the third quarter of the 2009 fiscal year. The pre-tax amount will be charged against the company’s operating expenses.
The graphics chipmaker wrote down a near $121 million dollar loss in the second quarter of 2008, the first one in five years, due to graphics cards that would overheat in users’ systems.
