ASML, the Veldhoven company that makes the machines without which no advanced chip can be made, has rarely done better. In 2025 its revenue rose 16% to €32.7 billion, with a net profit of €9.6 billion, and for 2026 it expects between €34 and €39 billion. Even so, it is cutting about 1,700 jobs worldwide, some 1,400 of them in the Netherlands.
The reason is not money but speed. ASML says its technology and IT organisations have grown too rigid, with too many layers of management. Engineers spend about 35% of their time on alignment, finance chief Roger Dassen said in January: meetings, approvals, coordination. Many management posts go; some staff move to new engineering roles, for instance on AI in the chip machines. “Of course this hurts us too,” said Dassen.
In June ASML and the unions agreed a social plan: no forced redundancies before 1 May 2027. But the switch to the new structure, planned for one day in November, has been split in two: 7 December for the technology organisation and 8 March 2027 for IT. For IT staff that leaves less than eight weeks between the new structure and the 1 May deadline to find another job.
That is why four unions walked out of talks on Monday. They say ASML is breaking the spirit of the social plan; ASML says it is a change of planning, not of the agreement, and has offered extra measures for IT staff. “The entire company is in upheaval because of these delays,” said Casper Vaandragen of the union VHP2.
A company that builds machines accurate to a fraction of a nanometre is finding that people do not move as precisely. ASML will still be making chips’ most important tools next year; the question is how many of its own people will be left to wonder where they fit.