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ASML staffing changes could result in a net reduction of around 1700 positions

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261–270 of 366 posts

Re: ASML staffing changes could result in a net reduction of around 1700 positions

#261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What products ? They lost battle for office software, they can't even exist in chat space, despise trying to make chat that sticks for 2 decades now, they squandered on video chat space and office space too. IF Alphabet was actually efficient they should own office space, but 365 ate their office productivity and even the utter turd that is MS teams is beating them out on chat. Even their search gets worse and only p…

Search, Android, Chrome, Chromebooks, Maps, Gmail, Youtube, Gemini. They definitely have embarrassing failures (chat especially), and some are not as successful as you'd expect them to be (Gsuite, GCP). But overall I'd say they are doing pretty damn well. Compare to Amazon for example. They've only ever had two really successful products: shopping and AWS. Alexa could have been too if they hadn't spent a gazillion do…

...yeah but that's just adding to point that shares buybacks are for companies that are stagnant and can't make successful investments.

> Search, Android, Chrome, Chromebooks, Maps, Gmail, Youtube, Gemini.

There is a single thing there that's not at least 10+ years old. And Search if anything is getting worse

Re: ASML staffing changes could result in a net reduction of around 1700 positions

#262

The press release ( https://www.asml.com/en/news/press-releases/2026/strengtheni... ) seems remarkably to the point, for CEO press release standards. I'm impressed by their ambition to fire 1700 managers (!) That's a lot of managers! I interviewed with ASML a decade and a half ago and while there was plenty to complain about (eg their tens of millions of lines of absolutely unmaintainable C code), I didn't feel at th…

I want to say "it's because they're Dutch lol" but it's signed by Cristophe (Fouquet), who is French. 1700 managers is a lot, but also, it's a huge multinational so I'm not surprised they have that many. They will be alright I'm sure - one, if there's any forced firings they will be well taken care of under Dutch labour laws, and two, ASML will look very good on a CV.

Those holding a "highly skilled immigrants" visa that get fired will have 3 months to find a new job, or their residency permit expires. ASML hosts quite a few expats. The internal competition won't be pretty.

Re: ASML staffing changes could result in a net reduction of around 1700 positions

#263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm glad the EU isn't subsidising European DRAM and NAND. Those are typically very low margin business. It's unlikely the EU could have competed with China because of labour costs/rights. Today we have a shortage in this sector and margins are good so it seems like a good idea. But it's likely a European company would have regularly lost money over the last 20 years and become an unpopular drain on EU finances.

>Those are typically very low margin business. It's unlikely the EU could have competed with China because of labour costs/rights. Well, you can apply this logic to a lot of other industries, like cars for example, they're also quite low margin products now when you ignore the stealership price gouging and artificail protectionism. The problem is if you just let all your manufacturing industry die out of greed and sh…

If we want to invest in independence then that's fine - let's not confuse it with nurturing a successful business.

I felt OP was suggesting that a European manufacturer would have flourished if properly supported by a visionary government, and I think that argument is mistaken.

You are arguing that globalised supply chains are risky, which is something I can agree with. If europe protects its DRAM manufacturer it is going to be less reliant on China but we should not confuse that with the European company flourishing. It seems likely such protection would be an expensive venture which absent any global conflict would produce more expensive products and make a loss while doing so.

Re: ASML staffing changes could result in a net reduction of around 1700 positions

#264
post #238
post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not fan of managers, but these are people with families behind them. 1,700 is a lot of families that may go into stress and who knows what. Let's just now talk about them as if they were just rows in a database. (I am not saying OP is talking like that about them, but I am seeing some responses that do...)

Sorry, but the empathy is misplaced. These people working bullshit jobs are dragging down the whole organization. If bullshit jobs are allowed to proliferate, they risk the even larger number of jobs (and families) of the people doing the actual work.

Even if what you are saying it's true (which is hard to prove), that may not be their fault either. Sometimes the context doesn't allow you to do what you want, what you think it's best, etc. You would say "Resign and find somewhere where you could", and that isn't easy either.

So again, please let's try to be more empathic, we are not talking about terrorist or really bad guys. These are employees of companies, with familires, who probably need those salaries to live in these weird times.

Re: ASML staffing changes could result in a net reduction of around 1700 positions

#265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Those are typically very low margin business. It's unlikely the EU could have competed with China because of labour costs/rights. Well, you can apply this logic to a lot of other industries, like cars for example, they're also quite low margin products now when you ignore the stealership price gouging and artificail protectionism. The problem is if you just let all your manufacturing industry die out of greed and sh…

If we want to invest in independence then that's fine - let's not confuse it with nurturing a successful business. I felt OP was suggesting that a European manufacturer would have flourished if properly supported by a visionary government, and I think that argument is mistaken. You are arguing that globalised supply chains are risky, which is something I can agree with. If europe protects its DRAM manufacturer it is…

> If europe protects its DRAM manufacturer

I never argued for protectionism since Chinese DRAM makers and EV industry also didn't grow out of protectionism. On the contrary, they invited Tesla to build a EV factory in Shanghai without the usual 51% state ownership simply to light a fire under the asses of Chinese domestic EV makers on an even playing field with Tesla forcing them to innovate to Tesla's level or die.

I was arguing for positive state management like that, not protectionism. The kind of state management our aerospace industry had.

Re: ASML staffing changes could result in a net reduction of around 1700 positions

#266
post #12

Can someone explain, why this is done? I get a feeling, it's normally done when a company is in trouble or will soon? But they should have more money than ever. They say it is to focus on innovation, but if you are a smart young person in NL, would you want to work where they just fired 1700 people? And if you already work there and are a top player it is a good time to rethink? A company I know wanted to focus, inst…

It is done because management needs to show that profits are increasing or they themselves will lose their jobs. Since they do not want to lose their jobs and they do not know how to increase profits they decided to fire 1700 employees with the hope that less expenses will translate into larger profits.

They've also done another thing:

>ASML also announced a new share buyback programme of up to €12 billion, to be executed by 31 December 2028.

They have €12 billion they don't know what to do with with so they will give it to shareholders, for a nice gain of less than 1% per year for the next 3 years. Assuming the annual salary costs of each of the 1700 employees is 150K (likely much much lower) those 12 billion could have paid for their employment for the next 47 years.

Re: ASML staffing changes could result in a net reduction of around 1700 positions

#267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to me (and maybe I'm wrong), but it seems to me that "a lack of IP" increasingly means "we have no leverage to get the licences that we need" in China, and "we have no idea how they used to do it" in the west.

China doesn't need licences. They can just violate western IP law and make lots of money. As every country without a need to placate the IP industry does.

You can't steal everything if you intend to export. That's why they bought Qimonda's IP portfolio, so they have valid licenses when they start to sell their products in the west and not get banned for IP theft, although I assume the US & allies will just ban them anyway for another dozen reasons out of protectionism.

Re: ASML staffing changes could result in a net reduction of around 1700 positions

#268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for sharing. You know what's ironic about Qimonda? China bought their IP after they went under, and used it to build two domestic NAND and DRAM manufacturers that are set to become giants. Funny how China has the vision to use, finance and monetize where western governments keep failing. That's what hurts the most to see. EU says they want a strong domestic electronics industry, but with the exception of ASML,…

It's certainly been interesting to watch over the span of my career so far. It's really quite interesting thinking back to that time for me in University, every few years something happens that sparks a memory; right now, it's that roughly 2007-2008 my professor was telling me about this "rollable" screen technology that was going to enable rolling/folding phones at some point in the future; a little earlier he'd bee…

Yeah, there was a lot more mentorship in the industry back them.

Re: ASML staffing changes could result in a net reduction of around 1700 positions

#269

I rose from Dev to Senior Management in a 100k+ global banking enterprise. I don't want to trash anyone. Having said that, I always kept my engineering approach as opposed to being a manager in the sense that what I did became an end in itself. I was more of a renegade within corporate, and used this unique position to achieve fun and results way above everyone else. I got proof, this ain't no bragging. It was easy m…

The class system is embedded within corporate structures. These management roles are simply a way for those higher up the class structure to extract money from the productive workers. You'll notice when nepotism happens and senior leaders kids or associates are hired it is usually in a management capacity. It's very rare to see them hired in an IC role. For example look at Jensen Huang's children at NVIDIA, and their children who have done internships....

Re: ASML staffing changes could result in a net reduction of around 1700 positions

#270
post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this case has much to do with the mono party system but with the state taking interest to support a local industry at a loss but for future security. Like for example the French government massively supported its aerospace and nuclear industry, and German government gave massive support to its legacy auto industry and they're not a mono party totalitarian system. So it can be done even in democracies, b…

So bailing out large corporations is a good thing?

No it isn't a good thing, who said anything about bailing out failing companies?
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