US semiconductor firm Marvell lays off entire China research and development team in latest round of job cuts amid industry slowdown

Santa Clara, California-based Marvell said it is eliminating about 320 jobs, or 4 per cent of its global workforce, in response to what the company described as an industry slowdown, according to a statement from the firm on Wednesday.

“We are streamlining our organisation to ensure that our workforce is positioned to take advantage of our most promising opportunities, both now and when we emerge from the current industry downcycle,” Stacey Keegan, Marvell’s vice-president of corporate marketing, said in the statement.

While China remains a large and important market for Marvell, Keegan said the company has decided to “concentrate our China-based resources on customer-facing teams to best support our local customers and business opportunities”. She added, however, that this move has “resulted in the elimination of certain R&D roles”.

Most of Marvell’s latest job cuts will directly affect the firm’s entire research and development operation in mainland China, while only about 5 per cent of these lay-offs will be conducted in the US, according to a report on Wednesday by Chinese semiconductor industry portal Ijiwei, which cited sources familiar with the matter.