Troubled tech giant Intel has begun a round of layoffs affecting hundreds of employees in Oregon, as revealed in a late filing with the state. According to a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) notice, the company started laying off a total of 669 employees on September 16. However, Intel only notified state and local officials of these layoffs recently, on Thursday.
The layoffs occurred at one facility in Aloha and three in Hillsboro, impacting various positions across the locations, with some roles seeing reductions of just one or two employees. Notably, none of the affected workers were unionized. The largest number of layoffs were among module equipment technicians, with over 300 positions cut across two facilities, in addition to reductions among manufacturing technicians and module development engineers.
Intel’s letter indicated that employees were informed at least 60 days prior to their termination date, or roughly four weeks in advance, and that they would receive nine weeks of pay and benefits. This year has seen significant job cuts at Intel; a WARN notice from July revealed that the number of layoffs in Oregon had increased from an initially announced 530 to as many as 2,329. An additional 117 layoffs were reported in an August filing, all scheduled to occur over the summer.
In a related note, Intel’s new CEO faced criticism from President Trump earlier this year before the two met to discuss a potential federal investment in the company, which was later confirmed at $8.9 million. Additionally, in September, NVIDIA announced plans to purchase $5 billion in Intel stock, aiming to integrate their hardware for AI and PC infrastructure.
The WARN Act mandates that employers provide a 60-day notice to employees and state and local representatives before implementing mass layoffs, a requirement that applies to companies with 100 or more employees. An official from the Oregon Higher Education Coordinating Commission, responsible for overseeing WARN notifications, was unable to explain the delay in Intel’s filing, which came about two months after the layoffs began.
