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

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

#31

Post by Magmalgebra »

canpan wrote: 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…

I think the press release is actually clear that they felt this was necessary to retain talent:

> Engineers in particular have expressed their desire to focus their time on engineering, without being hampered by slow process flows

I'm guessing ASML had a lot of regrettable attrition and heard this in the exit interviews.

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

#32

Post by arjie »

culi wrote: post #17
zhouzhao wrote: post #10

ASML understands what most big companies don't. If you don't reach your targets it's not the engineers fault. It's bad management ;)

ASML just set revenue records and its stock is surging due to the Q4 results

Fortunately, one can supply LinkedIn grade insights that fit any facts. For instance, try this one:

ASML understands what most big companies don’t: if you hit all your targets you weren’t setting yourself tough enough targets.

There we go.

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

#33

Post by MattGaiser »

ygouzerh wrote: post #22
abigail95 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a mechanism to distribute profits to shareholders. Do you invest in companies that don't distribute profits - does this get you some kind of higher return?

From the company perspective, performing buyback when market is high is just throwing cash by the windows to over-priced shares. If they wanted to distribute cash, they could just use dividends

Dividends are taxed. No company is going to argue they are overvalued either.

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

#34

Post by swiftcoder »

theanonymousone wrote: post #5
dep_b wrote: post #2

Apologies for the Dutch source, but I couldn’t find any source in English yet. “ ASML plans to eliminate approximately 3,000 of its 4,500 management positions in engineering. The expectation is that approximately 1,400 people will be able to move into new engineering roles.”

Does that mean half of those managers will become engineers?

I've worked with a number of people who made the IC -> manager conversion because it was represented as the best way forward in their career, only to find out it made them miserable, and convert back after a few years. I think you'll find that sort of conversion back to IC is not all that uncommon.

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

#35

Post by kachnuv_ocasek »

ygouzerh wrote: post #22
abigail95 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a mechanism to distribute profits to shareholders. Do you invest in companies that don't distribute profits - does this get you some kind of higher return?

From the company perspective, performing buyback when market is high is just throwing cash by the windows to over-priced shares. If they wanted to distribute cash, they could just use dividends

One could argue share buybacks are more tax-efficient.

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

#36

Post by eru »

ygouzerh wrote: post #22
abigail95 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a mechanism to distribute profits to shareholders. Do you invest in companies that don't distribute profits - does this get you some kind of higher return?

From the company perspective, performing buyback when market is high is just throwing cash by the windows to over-priced shares. If they wanted to distribute cash, they could just use dividends

Buybacks and dividends are economically equivalent. They mostly differ in tax treatment.

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

#37

Post by xmprt »

ygouzerh wrote: post #22
abigail95 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a mechanism to distribute profits to shareholders. Do you invest in companies that don't distribute profits - does this get you some kind of higher return?

From the company perspective, performing buyback when market is high is just throwing cash by the windows to over-priced shares. If they wanted to distribute cash, they could just use dividends

> to be executed by 31 December 2028

So I don't think it's going to be executed at the absolute peak. But it does imply that the finance people in ASML believe that the stock is undervalued even if the market as a whole is at all time highs.

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

#38

Post by tehmillhouse »

stingraycharles wrote: post #9
noosphr wrote: post #7

> ASML also announced a new share buyback programme of up to €12 billion, to be executed by 31 December 2028. Oh boy. This fills me with dread. I've never seen a company that starts doing buybacks not become a financialized hollow shell within a decade. Being an irreplaceable monopoly on the commanding heights of the digital economy makes this even worse.

It's a signal that the finance people are becoming more important to the company, but not necessarily a bad thing; it's effectively a more (tax) efficient form of dividends, which isn't very controversial. ASML is a fairly old company (40+ years), and they have been doing share buybacks since 2006: https://www.asml.com/en/investors/why-invest-in-asml/share-b...

Every time I can remember that the finance people have become more important to a company, it has led to the disappearance of the internal culture geared towards excellence that got a company to that point in the first place.

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

#39

Post by microtonal »

canpan wrote: 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…

Actually, they are eliminating 3000 of the 4500 engineering manager positions. However, of those 3000, they are moving 1400 to an engineering position. The article also says that engineers are spending 35% of the time coordinating with their managers and that they want to cut the red tape with this move.

Of course, it's hard to tell how much is PR and how much reality. However, if there is substance to it, it would want me to work there even more, since they value engineering culture over management culture. Having more velocity is good.

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

#40

Post by bayindirh »

renewiltord wrote: post #27
skrebbel wrote: post #13

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…

Mark Zuckerberg’s Great Manager Flattening has definitely spread down the chain to other organizations. Irrespective of the difference between organizations they hired after Meta hired and they fired in the same way as Meta after Meta fired. The children did not know that they were following the piper. The piper knew. Everyone thinks themselves unique and historic. e.g. Balenciaga will say their new logo is inspired…

Mark's and Meta's total business knowledge and experience is comparably a small drop w.r.t. ASML's ocean of knowledge and heritage (considering Philips' involvement in it, too).
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