Chip equipment maker KLA is cutting more than 70 employees – Silicon Valley Business Journal – The Business Journals
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KLA plans is slashing staff amid a 'severe correction' for semiconductor manufacturing equipment makers.
KLA Corp. plans to cut 72 employees from its Milpitas headquarters.
The semiconductor manufacturing equipment maker plans to cut the workers May 8, and the lost jobs are expected to be permanent, KLA human resources staffer Michelle Sagor wrote in a letter Friday to state and local officials.
“The affected employees are not represented by a union,” Sagor wrote in the letter, which the state Employment Development Department made public Thursday. “No bumping rights will exist for employees affected by the closure.”
Representatives of KLA, which makes defect detection equipment, declined to comment.
The company’s layoffs will affect employees who work out of its corporate base at One Technology Dr., Sagor said. She did not provide a list of roles affected by the cuts.
KLA and the other Silicon Valley chip equipment makers Lam Research Corp. and Applied Materials Inc. have been hurt in recent months by a combination of slowing demand for some types of chips and wide-ranging sanctions the U.S. implemented on chip equipment exports to China.
Combined, the three companies estimated that they would lose $5.9 billion in sales as a result of export blocks to China that were put in place last fall. For its part, KLA finance chief Bren Higgins said the company would lose $500 million to $900 million of revenue in 2023 as a result of those particular restrictions.
KLA’s cuts come about a month after Lam announced it planned to slash 400 Bay Area workers as part of a global layoff of 1,300, or roughly 7% of its staff. Applied Materials has not announced layoffs in recent weeks.
“Our view (is) that the semiconductor capital equipment industry is entering a severe correction,” Toshiya Hari, an analyst who covers the chip industry for Goldman Sachs, wrote in a report in January.
KLA (Nasdaq: KLAC) shares were down 1.4% to $381.10 a piece in afternoon trading Thursday.
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