Semiconductor designer Arm has cut around 40% of the UK staff that were hired as part of owner SoftBank’s promise to create jobs in Britain.
After its acquisition of Arm in 2016, Japanese conglomerate SoftBank pledged to double the number of British jobs at Arm from the then 1,770.
While this pledge was successfully met, having reached more than 3,500 last year, the recent job cuts at SoftBank have hit the company’s UK operations significantly.
Hundreds of job cuts at Arm were announced in March, following the collapse of a deal that would have seen US-based Nvidia take over Arm. The bulk of the jobs cut at the time were based in the UK and US.
Some 700 UK-based Arm jobs have been cut, compared to the rest of the global workforce that has been downsized by 550 staff.
In September, it was revealed that 30% of jobs would be cut at SoftBank’s Vision Fund, the venture capital wing of the company.
Cambridge-headquartered Arm designs and licences processor intellectual property used in many of the world’s smartphones and computers.
Arm, founded in 1990, became one of the biggest UK public tech companies before the 2016 SoftBank acquisition saw it delisted from the London Stock Exchange.
The UK government has been ramping up efforts to convince SoftBank CEO, Masayoshi Son, to re-list Arm in London. However, New York is said to remain the SoftBank chief’s preferred choice.
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