Wolfspeed lays off more than a third of its workforce at new Chatham County factory
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- Wolfspeed will lay off 73 employees at its Siler City plant in early August.
- The company cites weak customer demand as it reviews capital structure options.
- Wolfspeed must meet hiring targets to receive state incentives for the $5B facility.
As it moves to restructure its debt, including through a potential Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the struggling Durham semiconductor supplier Wolfspeed will lay off more than a third of the workers at the company’s new materials factory in western Chatham County.
In a June 9 letter to the N.C. Department of Commerce, Wolfspeed said 73 employees at its Siler City facility will lose their jobs, effective in early August. These cuts impact senior and entry-level positions, including engineers, technicians, and security personnel.
“Wolfspeed has implemented a workforce adjustment at its materials facility in Siler City, N.C., to align staffing with near-term customer demand,” company spokesperson Kris Camacho said in an email Wednesday to The News & Observer. “Decisions that impact our colleagues are never easy, and we are grateful to our departing colleagues for their many contributions to Wolfspeed.”
Under the federal WARN Act, companies are required to notify state officials 60 days before layoffs become official when they impact at least 50 employees and one-third of a site’s workforce.
This is the latest round of layoffs Wolfspeed has made over the past 12 months amid aggressive cost-cutting. The firm entered last summer with more than 5,000 employees worldwide. Since then, it has shrunk its headcount by more than 25% through a series of job eliminations, buyouts, and staff attrition. The company fired its CEO last fall and has yet to receive money through a federal CHIPS grant awarded in October.
Before delivering this money, the Biden administration required Wolfspeed to first achieve certain financial milestones, including restructuring portions of its approaching 2026 debt. President Donald Trump has since criticized the CHIPS program, which was designed to bolster domestic semiconductor manufacturing.
“I’m really confident that they will work their way through this,” Siler City Mayor Donald Matthews said of the company’s leaders. “But you have to remember what has happened to them since the administration in DC changed.”
Wolfspeed ended last quarter with more than $1.3 billion in cash, yet the long-time Triangle company has more than $6 billion in debt due over the next several years, with the earliest obligation next May. The company has rejected deals to restructure this 2026 debt, saying it instead seeks a more comprehensive answer that could involve an “in-court solution.”
Camacho, though, said the latest Siler City layoffs were “independent of the Company’s ongoing capital-structure review.”
Siler City waits on plant promises
Originally named Cree, Wolfspeed took on significant debt to fund its evolution away from legacy lighting divisions and toward exclusively making a unique semiconductor called silicon carbide, which is used to power electric vehicles and in other applications. It built a major new device facility in New York State’s Mohawk Valley and, in September 2022, announced plans to construct a $5 billion materials plant near Siler City.
Under its incentive agreement with North Carolina, Wolfspeed committed to eventually employ 1,800 workers at the facility, which was later named The John Palmour Manufacturing Center for Silicon Carbide after the company’s late cofounder (Company officials now refer to the plant by its nickname, “The JP.”)
This state incentive, called a job development investment grant, will only pay out after Wolfspeed meets its hiring goals. The North Carolina General Assembly did however appropriate $57.5 million upfront to the state commerce department to help prepare the 445-acre site.
Wolfspeed completed its Siler City plant in March 2024. The company says it expects to receive a full certificate of occupancy this month, which would let the company begin production. The facility sits about an hour-drive west of Raleigh in the town of 8,000.
Following a previous layoff announcement this past March, Wolfspeed spokesperson Bridget Johnson told The News & Observer that job growth in Siler City “will occur at a slower pace than initially projected based on current customer demand.”
This story was originally published June 11, 2025 at 12:59 PM.
