Layoffs can be hard, and when it happens in one of your dream jobs, you can be heartbroken. This is exactly what happened with Sriram Ramkrishna, a 56-year-old job seeker in Portland, Oregon, who worked at Intel for over two decades.
“In July, I was laid off by Intel — for the second time,” he told Business Insider. He was given a few weeks to try and find a new role inside Intel, but after his second experience, he felt it might be time for “a new adventure.”
He wasn’t too worried initially because he and his wife had saved up a financial cushion. But everything changed on July 31, his last working day, when “my wife also lost her job.” Suddenly, the casual approach shifted to urgency.
His experience with Intel
Ramkrishna first joined Intel in 1996 as a fresh graduate and worked there for 20 years until his first layoff in 2016. He spent 16 tough months looking for work before finding a new engineering job at another company. But in 2022, he was laid off again.
Then a position opened up back at Intel. He admits he was conflicted. Some who were laid off in 2016 were unhappy with how things happened, and he was among them. But “I needed a job and wasn’t in a position to pass up opportunities.” So he returned in a developer relations role.
Three years later, another restructuring hit. He learned his group was being dissolved: “We were told the company would spend the rest of the month shopping our work to other business units… but if they couldn’t find a fit, we’d lose our jobs.
Eventually, there was “no fit”, and employees had “about three weeks to try to land another role within Intel,” he told Business Insider.
Brutality of job market
“The past four months of my job search have been challenging,” said Ramakrishna to Business Insider. He received interviews but ended up “rejected or ghosted.”
He believes he is better prepared than in 2016, he knows his niche now, developer relations. But competition has exploded.“If an employer I’m interested in posts a job, there’s bound to be at least 400 applicantsm,” he explained.
He has joined private Slack and Discord communities for developer relations roles, connected with hiring managers, and gained referrals. The biggest lift has come from former Intel coworkers.
“It feels like we’re all looking out for one another,” Ramkrishna explained. He even helped new graduates get interviews, wanting to support them through their first layoff.
Way forward
Intel’s severance package has been helpful, but with both spouses unemployed, stress is increasing. He believes there is still time before things become serious, but the goal is clear, “I definitely want to secure a job by early next year,” he told Business Insider.
He thinks the growing tech investment in Europe might offer better chances.“I think a lot of the search will come down to luck and timing,” he explained to Business Insider. His strategy is to stay active, attending events, watching job channels, and staying connected.
Layoff scenario in US’ tech industry
In 2025 the US tech world has been hit by a big wave of job losses. According to tracker Layoffs.fyi, more than 120,000 people have been laid off across 237 companies as of late November due to a clear sign of a massive shake-up driven by cost cuts, restructuring, and the rise of AI.
Earlier in the year, TechCrunch already warned of trouble ahead. By mid-2025, they reported “more than 22,000 cuts,” and the numbers climbed, April saw a peak of 24,500 job losses, February and July saw over 16,000 each, and October brought 18,510 more.
Behind the headlines are giants like Microsoft, Amazon, Meta and Google, and most recently Intel, which has laid off around 24,000 workers globally in a dramatic labour cut, which is 22–25% of its workforce, shrinking its headcount from nearly 100,000 at the end of 2024 to about 75,000–88,400 by Q3 2025.
The affected roles span engineers and other skilled workers, showing the depth of the company’s transformation.
