ASML says to cut around 1,700 jobs amid focus on engineering, innovation

The ASML (ASML) Board of Management shared an internal message with employees: “The semiconductor ecosystem is poised to experience significant growth in the coming years, and ASML is well positioned to leverage this positive development. On behalf of the Board of Management, I want to thank everyone for their contribution to this success. We can attribute our success to our customer dedication, engineering talent and collaborative approach to the ecosystem. Our ability to innovate and execute has generated substantial benefits for our customers and suppliers, our colleagues, and our investors. We intend to continue to grow our workforce and footprint, including at our planned second campus in Eindhoven, in line with customer demand. As with any company that grows rapidly, however, we need to be mindful that the way we have grown does not slow us down. The feedback from our colleagues, our suppliers and our customers shows that our ways of working have, in some cases, become less agile. Engineers in particular have expressed their desire to focus their time on engineering, without being hampered by slow process flows, and restore the fast-moving culture that has made us so successful. We believe it is important to address these issues so that we are well prepared for future growth and well positioned to continue to deliver for our customers. As a result, we are announcing today that we intend to strengthen our focus on engineering and innovation in critical areas of our company through the streamlining of the Technology and the IT organizations. In the Technology organization, we are proposing to shift from a project/matrix setup to one where most of our engineers will be dedicated to a specific product and module. This will allow us to simplify processes and decision-making. This need for simplification is something that we have heard consistently from all levels of the organization. As a result of these proposed changes, some roles — mainly at the leadership level — may no longer be required. At the same time, to retain our engineering capability, we will create new engineering jobs to strengthen existing technology projects and embark on new ones to support our own and our customers’ growth plans. While this will allow some of our impacted colleagues to move to new roles, we have to acknowledge that some will leave ASML as a result. n addition to the Technology changes, we will also look at the setup of the IT & Data organization, similarly seeking ways to streamline its structure to optimize its delivery capabilities. In the coming weeks we will be working closely with our social partners in the Netherlands to discuss the intent and extent of these changes. At this stage, we believe the proposed changes could ultimately result in a net reduction of around 1,700 positions, mostly in the Netherlands, with some in the United States.”