Kamal Ghorui
ASML, the Dutch chip equipment maker that holds a global monopoly on the machines used to manufacture advanced semiconductors, is cutting roughly 1,700 jobs—about 4% of its 44,000-person workforce. The layoffs, announced in January alongside record full-year revenue of €32.7 billion, are targeting management and coordination roles, not engineers.Internal documents obtained by Business Insider show exactly which titles are on the chopping block: Department Manager, Group Leader, Team Leader, Project Lead, Chief Product Owner, Product Owner, Scrum Masters, Main Delivery Owner, Release Train Engineers, Program Manager, and Project Cluster Manager.
The AI boom is fueling demand. The org chart is the problem.
The logic, according to CEO Christophe Fouquet, is that the company grew too layered and too slow. Engineers were spending more time navigating internal processes than actually engineering. The reorganization aims to fix that by flattening the org chart and creating around 1,400 new engineering roles to replace the management ones being removed.Around 1,400 of the affected positions are in the Netherlands, with 185 in the US—down from an initially proposed 300 American cuts.
A billion-dollar buyback and a walkout: ASML’s uncomfortable contradiction
More than 1,000 employees staged a lunchtime walkout at ASML’s Veldhoven headquarters in March. Unions have called for a second protest during the company’s shareholder meeting. The main union, FNV, argues that with €9.6 billion in net profit last year and a €12 billion share buyback program in the pipeline, ASML has the resources to avoid forced redundancies entirely.ASML confirmed to Business Insider it’s also planning a six-week summer recruitment freeze. The company says final decisions aren’t locked in yet, with union negotiations and an internal works council review still ongoing.
