'Being an immigrant on H1B': Indian techie laid off by Qualcomm seeks help finding new job

The senior engineer from India was laid off by Qualcomm within a year of being hired.

An Indian senior engineer with Qualcomm, who was laid off recently has sought help finding a new job in the US before he runs out of time granted by his H1B visa.

Tushar Trehon, a former senior performance managing engineer with the multinational chip manufacturing company, took to LinkedIn recently after failing to secure a job.

"A little over a month ago, I was unfortunately impacted by a round of layoffs at Qualcomm," Trehon wrote on LinkedIn. He had previously also worked with Microsoft Innovation Lab in Bengaluru, as per his LinkedIn profile, and added that he was laid off by Qualcomm within a year of being hired.

"Being an immigrant worker on H1B I have limited time to look for a new job," he added with his appeal for information regarding job opportunities in the semiconductor industry.

Qualcomm had announced company-wide layoffs impacting 5 percent of its staff, including about 20 percent of its employees from the mobile division, citing slump in smartphone sales.

"Given the current macroeconomic and demand environment, we're implementing further spending reductions and streamlining operations without losing sight of the significant growth and diversification opportunities ahead," CEO Cristiano Amon said in a statement earlier.

Qualcomm reported a decline of 34 percent year-on-year (YoY) in net income in the quarter that ended in December 2022, Business Today reported. Its revenue dropped 12 percent and it was attributed to the macroeconomic slowdown and the fall in demand for mobile handsets. The low demand for smartphones directly impacts the company because chip manufacturing is one of Qualcomm's major revenue-generating operations.

Read more: Google, Meta, Amazon hiring low-paid H1B workers after US layoffs