Dell will be shaving its global workforce by 5%, cutting roughly 6,650 positions in order to lower the total headcount at the PC tech company down to just 126,300 workers.
After this reduction, Dell will have the fewest employees it has ever had across the last six years. This sets it apart from the other huge tech companies that have shed workers in the past several months, since many of those businesses have remained larger than they were pre-pandemic.
Business has slowed for PCs across the last year, with Dell computers overrepresented in those declining sales. Experts aren't expecting PC sales to pick up across the rest of 2023.
Dell's Future Remains “Uncertain”
Dell Co-Chief Operating Officer Jeff Clarke has announced in a memo that “market conditions continue to erode with an uncertain future” despite recent cost-cutting measures including a hiring freeze and travel limitations.
“We’ve navigated economic downturns before, and we’ve emerged stronger. We will be ready when the market rebounds.” – Jeff Clarke, Co-COO of Dell
Dell reported a 6% year-over-year sales decline in late 2022, along with a lower-than-expected revenue forecast.
The company will likely offer more information about what its 5% reduction will look like and what areas of the company it will impact when it reports its fourth-quarter results on March 2nd. But until then, details are murky.
Dell Revenue Was Over $100 Billion Last Year
Sales have dropped at Dell, even though the company's revenue across 2022 totaled $101.197 billion.
In total, Dell's headcount has dropped by about 39,000 since January 2020, even while many other tech companies saw their ranks swell in late 2020 and 2021.
This isn't exactly a sign of a steady decline, however, as Dell spun off VMware Inc. in late 2021, and the company's over 37,000 employees are represented in the number that left Dell. Only about a third of Dell's employees are US-based, Bloomberg reports.
PC Layoffs Set to Continue
If you've followed tech news across the last half a year, you're likely not surprised to hear about more layoffs. Tech giants from Google to Microsoft to Amazon have all shed tens of thousands of employees.
This long winter of tech has hit plenty of PC companies as well: HP Inc. announced a reduction of up to 6,000 workers this last November, while Cisco and IBM each announced reductions of up to 4,000 employees.
Dell may be facing the biggest reduction, but the entire PC industry is focused on reducing employees.
