Intel Stock (NASDAQ:INTC) Skyrockets Amid Major Workforce Shakeup: New Hirings, Big Firings Fuel Rally

Intel's stock just got a turbocharged boost—and it’s all thanks to a brutal game of corporate musical chairs.

Hiring spree meets aggressive cuts as the chip giant bets big on its comeback. Wall Street’s either applauding the decisiveness or side-eyeing the whiplash—depending on who’s holding the bag.

One thing’s clear: INTC investors love a good shakeup. Even if it smells like desperation wrapped in a press release.

Bonus jab: Nothing fixes a stagnant stock like some good old-fashioned human resource roulette. Just ask the laid-off engineers.

Confident Investing Starts Here:

• Easily unpack a company's performance with TipRanks' new KPI Data for smart investment decisions
• Receive undervalued, market resilient stocks right to your inbox with TipRanks' Smart Value Newsletter

We remember that Intel plans to lay off about one person in every five from the manufacturing division, which adds up to somewhere around 10,000 employees in total, reports noted. But, in perhaps a rougher note still, reports noted that there will be neither “voluntary buyouts” nor “early retirement packages” offered. Rather, Intel will be firing employees “…based on performance evaluations and strategic priorities,” reports noted.

This is the third major round of layoffs Intel has posted so far in the last 12 months, reports note, and has seen everyone from top-level brass to middle management tossed out in a bid to streamline operations. But now, with the factory floor about to take a layoff with nothing more than the shirts on their collective back, the blows will hit throughout the entire operation.

Not Everybody is Fired

And, as we also heard previously, Intel is looking to beef up its engineering ranks to try and develop the next big things in processor development. With Intel looking to get back market share lost to several different competitors, this is perhaps the most clearly urgent course of action for Intel.

Intel recently picked up three “chip industry executives,” reports noted, who WOULD be tasked with engineering roles, as well as networking roles, within Intel. The new hires come from substantial engineering backgrounds, serving as part of a “flattened” leadership team. One of them will be running a newly-minted “customer engineering center,” while another will handle development of an artificial intelligence (AI)-focused system-on-a-chip (SoC) development. The third will handle development duties on new chip architectures, helping to keep Intel in the hunt for the top slot in the market.

Is Intel a Buy, Hold or Sell?

Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Hold consensus rating on INTC stock based on one Buy, 26 Holds and four Sells assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 32.07% loss in its share price over the past year, the average INTC price target of $21.30 per share implies 0.44% downside risk.

Disclosure