Intel Layoffs: How many?
Compared to the Bay area or Seattle, one thing that Portland does not seem to have is a lot of tech jobs. Now that Intel has restructured, it would seem to follow that the job market around here is going to be more competitive than ever.
I heard that Intel has let thousands of people go in Hillboro. Could those numbers be right?
I don’t know if “thousands” is correct — I’d bet the mid to high hundreds would be more like the actual number. I’m a former long-time Intel employee and my friends and former colleagues still with the company have given me lots of names of people who have been let go over the past week.
The sad thing is, that the blood-letting is not done, and will continue for many months to come. Which means that many people are going to be living on pins and needles (not to mention families of employees).
The other sad thing, is that many *GOOD* people are being let go. In fact, so many good solid but un-politically connected workers are being let go, that it seems to me that Intel is shooting itself in the foot by keeping the political players and high level managers who are the root cause of the problems with the company in the first place.
The culture follows the tone of management, and the goal of management is to preserve their status and grow their own careers, and their actions reflect that. So it’s very much a self-fulfilling prophecy — non political people who do much of the actual work, rather than spend their time playing political games, are the ones who are taking the brunt of this layoff.
And for those reasons, and for those people, I am very very sad. I left the company (with somber emotions, as Intel is a shadow of its former self) some months ago (well before all this layoff business started) and while I’m very glad I left, I remember with fondness the “good old days” when people got stuff done, and Intel was a hard but rewarding place to work.
It’s lost that. I’ve moved on to much bigger and better things, and I hope the people who have been/are being let go, do the same.
There is GREAT life beyond Intel, no matter how hard it seems when you get the message from your manager. Life *WILL* be better without Intel in it.
Intel has always done this, just never quite so publicly. If you go through the ranking and rating system at all, roughly 25% of all employees at any point in time are being actively assisted to find other employment — either in other departments or outside of Intel.
There IS life after Intel. In fact, my SO got a call about about two years ago asking if he’d be interested in taking his old job back. His response was, “No, hell no, and are you nuts?”
I’m not surprised by the layoffs at all, but I do feel for the families affected. But, as Drone said, there IS life after Intel.
Just a suggestion for you ex intel people. SEH America in Vancouver is looking to fill positions. The columbian recently reported that they are investing 350 mill in to there sillicon wafer plant.
one way to get in there is to visit Volt Staffing services on 164th AVE. They have been offering SEH positions to my friends that work for them.
I am an ex-SEH employee. I don’t care to go back there but it is definatley a decent place if you enjoy that type of work.