British chip giant Arm planning to lay off 15% of staff

British chip giant Arm is to cut 15% of its workforce, according to a new report.

In an internal email to staff seen by The Telegraph, new Arm CEO Rene Haas has revealed that he is planning to significantly slim down his company’s workforce in the wake of Nvidia’s failed $66 billion acquisition.

“To stay competitive, we need to remove duplication of work now that we are one Arm,” reads the email. Haas proposes that the company “stop work that is no longer critical to our future success; and think about how we get work done.”

Part of this process will involve the company learning “to be more disciplined about our costs and where we’re investing.” In cold hard terms, this will equate to between 12 and 15 percent of Arm’s global workforce being cut.

That could potentially amount to as many as 1,000 jobs on the chopping block, spread across the UK and US.

It’s well known that Arm’s current owner, Japan’s SoftBank, is eyeing up an initial public offering (IPO) by way of an alternative to the Nvidia deal. If this is to take place by March 2023, as suggested, then it will want the company looking lean and suitably trimmed for potential investors.

Of course, Arm’s deep technical expertise is its key strength, and the very reason that every company from Apple to Qualcomm relies on it for their basic chip designs. One has to hope that the company doesn’t cut too deep, especially given the immense troubles faced elsewhere in the chip industry.