Intel has laid off “hundreds” of IT staff at facilities in the US, including its largest manufacturing site in Oregon, which is home to 20,000 workers.
The daily newspaper The Oregonian was first to report the layoffs, citing internal sources at their nearest Intel facility and an outsourcing drive.
Intel confirmed the dismissals, telling the paper: “Changes in our workforce are driven by the needs and priorities of our business, which we continually evaluate. We are committed to treating all impacted employees with professionalism and respect.”
Sources told the Oregonian that Intel is restructuring the way it works with contractors and IT specialists. Instead of working with a range of different contractors the company is moving operations to one single contractor, the Indian-based Infosys.
Infosys is India’s second largest IT services firm.
Intel Layoffs Part of Supplier Consolidation?
The consolidation of IT services down to one contractor will eliminate many of the managing positions that were required to handle the different suppliers and personnel.
It has also been reported that workers in a large scale administrative facility in Costa Rica have been let go and this would seem to match the narrative that the company is restructuring their internal IT administration systems.
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More broadly the company is investing widely in manufacturing facilities around the world. The company is planning site expansions at its current manufacturing sites in Ireland, Israel and Oregon. It expects to start multi-year construction projects this year once the discussions and permits have been established with the local planning authorities in each jurisdiction.
Senior VP and GM of Manufacturing and Operations at Intel, Dr Ann Kelleher commented in an Intel release last December that: “Having additional fab space at-the-ready will help us respond more quickly to upticks in the market and enables us to reduce our time to increased supply by up to roughly 60 percent.”
In January this year Intel also invested circa. £8.2 billion into a semiconductor foundry in Israel, in what the country’s finance Minister Moshe Kahlon called an: “an unprecedented decision that is expected to bring thousands of jobs.”
Computer Business Review has contacted Intel And Infosys for comment.
