ASML slams brakes on mass recruitment as demand for chips slows

After years of constantly hiring new employees, ASML is putting the brakes on mass recruitment. The Veldhoven chip machine company wants to focus on training and settling in the around 10,000 people it hired last year, a spokesperson told Eindhovens Dagblad. The demand for chips, and therefore chip machines, is also slowing down.

“Last year, we hired 10,000 people,” the spokesperson said. They were needed to meet the explosive demand for chip machines. But training all those new employees turned out to be a massive job. “It was a lot, and that puts pressure on the organization. It’s good to take a break.”

For the time being, ASML will focus on organizing the enormous growth in its workforce, the spokesperson said. But they stressed that ASML wasn’t freezing vacancies completely. The growth rate is just slowing down.

The demand for computer chips has also been slowing down in parts of the industry for months. There is much less demand for consumer electronics, like smartphones and laptops, for example. And that naturally affects ASML, which sells machines to make chips for these devices.

“The industry has strong long-term growth prospects but is facing short-term setbacks,” the spokesperson said. Figures for the first quarter showed a considerable drop in new orders for ASML. Customers ordered 3.8 billion euros worth of chip machines from the company in the first quarter, compared to amounts between 6 ad 8 billion euros in previous quarters.