Dell fires over 6,000 employees

In the course of the published business figures up to the end of 2022, Microsoft recently gave its assessment of the future of the PC market. For the foreseeable future, it is assumed that the PC market will continue to weaken. At the peak of the global corona pandemic, there was a boom in demand for new laptops, game consoles and the like, but that’s over. Sales with a Windows license fell by 39 percent. Now the Microsoft hardware partners are also reacting, including Dell. The American company has announced lay off 6,650 employees due to the uncertain economic situation.

Dell wants to save more money in production with recycling in the future

The company, run by company founder Michael Dell, had previously tried to mitigate the slump in demand by cutting costs. For example, there are travel restrictions for employees and a hiring freeze. As COO Jeff Clarke clarifies, these steps were not enough, so employees are now being laid off. At Dell, PC sales account for more than half of revenue, so weak demand translates significantly into poorer business results.

In the future, Dell wants to save even more money by offering modular laptops. As many materials as possible should be reused in order to save resources and costs. Depending on the condition of the components, certain parts could be used in new laptops. It can happen, for example, that the notebook’s speakers were not used by the previous owner and could therefore be removed from the discarded laptop and installed in a new model, according to Dell CTO Glen Robson.

In addition to Dell, its competitor HP Inc. has also announced that it will lay off 6,000 employees due to weak demand for PCs. The only PC maker to increase sales in 2022 was Apple. 27.9 million Macs and MacBooks were no longer sold, but 28.6 million units. World market leader Lenovo has 68 million PCs (2021: 81.1 million), followed by HP with 55.3 million PCs (previously: 74 million) and Dell with 49.8 million PCs sold last year (previously 59.3 million).

Also worth reading: Microsoft: PC market is expected to continue to weaken

Collection on the wave of layoffs at Dell:

• The PC manufacturer Dell is laying off 6,650 employees. According to COO Jeff Clarke, all cost-cutting measures taken so far have not been enough.
• At Dell, PC sales account for more than half of revenue. In the past year, however, demand has collapsed after there was a boom at the height of the Covid 19 pandemic.
• Instead of 59.3 million PCs, Dell only sold 49.8 million new devices in 2022. In the future, money should be saved in the production of new computers with reused components from used PCs.

Source: Reuters