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INTC will trim work force after slowness in sales

Good chemistry is important. I don't know if it's routine turnover or something like New Mexico but no one cares about personal feuds, ethnic feuds or back stabbing. The only thing people really cared about was having 14 nm processors and mobility and it didn't happen.

My personal view of oregon is the place is too negative and tribal and changes need to come.
 
Portland,

If you live in the Portland area, let's meet for coffee or lunch. We have a monthly EDA and Semiconductor networking group that meets next Friday, June 12th from 11:30AM to 1:00PM, The Olive Garden in Lake Oswego. You're invited.
 
Now a day, fabs will go to next node, wafer cost increases, ramp up and yield become questionable, ROI gets in trouble, then cut down the work force. Cutting down work force also has become a cycle like business cycle in most of the organizations.
 
The last time that I worked at Intel and they had a sales slowdown they spread out the pain with a succession of actions:

  • Hiring freeze
  • Wage freeze
  • 10% pay cut for all employees
  • Shutdown over Christmas to New Years
  • Shutdown in the summertime for a week
  • Ask each salaried employee to work an extra 2 hours per day, unpaid

Over the course of 4 years, 1982-1986 they saw their work force drop by 25%, voluntarily.

I left in 1986 to join the fast-growing market of EDA and the rest is history.
 
Daniel Payne said:
Maybe good news for investors, but not so much for the employees that are let go.

Intel plans job cuts across the company, internal memo says | OregonLive.com
Click to expand...

According to the news link you pointed to:

"Intel's memo indicates the company does not plan to announce the cuts.
"We will not broadly communicate the program internally or externally," the memo reads. "We are primarily communicating only to MCM (management committee members), senior leaders, people managers, affected employees, and the direct managers.""

It doesn't sound like a clear and honest communication strategy for a publicly-traded company. It will create more rumors, distractions, and mistrust.
 
Last edited:
In my long term career at Intel I have seen such actions quite regularly, it is just not as often that the memos find their way into the press. It used to be about 20-25 years ago that if you mentioned you worked at Intel, the reply may have been: "Isn't that the company that is always having some layoffs?". Their corporate PR has addressed this previous negative image by what I would call stealth redeployments and more local trimmings of individual departments. Over time this has led to a different kind of paranoia, keeping near the top of your career thinking in terms of considering if your contributions, skills, and the group or department you are in is sufficiently relevant to Intel's business. The positive side of this is that it helped keep you on your feet and sharp if you wanted to stay in the business, while on the downside it can be quite stressful at times, especially when considering your longer term planning and longer term commitments. It personally helped shape my financial thinking to be more conservative, always planning for the rainy day that may or may not be happening next quarter. After being there almost 30 years, surviving multiple reductions in force, project cancellations, and other belt tightenings, when they offered me a buyout package, I was more than ready, both mentally and financially. :cool:
 
cpuarchx said:
In my long term career at Intel I have seen such actions quite regularly, it is just not as often that the memos find their way into the press. It used to be about 20-25 years ago that if you mentioned you worked at Intel, the reply may have been: "Isn't that the company that is always having some layoffs?". Their corporate PR has addressed this previous negative image by what I would call stealth redeployments and more local trimmings of individual departments. Over time this has led to a different kind of paranoia, keeping near the top of your career thinking in terms of considering if your contributions, skills, and the group or department you are in is sufficiently relevant to Intel's business. The positive side of this is that it helped keep you on your feet and sharp if you wanted to stay in the business, while on the downside it can be quite stressful at times, especially when considering your longer term planning and longer term commitments. It personally helped shape my financial thinking to be more conservative, always planning for the rainy day that may or may not be happening next quarter. After being there almost 30 years, surviving multiple reductions in force, project cancellations, and other belt tightenings, when they offered me a buyout package, I was more than ready, both mentally and financially. :cool:
Click to expand...

Sounds like a great place to work.
 
anshulbansal said:
Sounds like a great place to work.
Click to expand...

It used to be. Despite the stress, some of the product development efforts were truly exciting, really fueling the enthusiasm for the job. But I would say that after about 1999 with the tech bubble, the culture changed, along with much of the rest of the industry. Too many MBAs, and not enough engineers in the decision making process.
 
That brings back bad memories. I left after the 10% pay cut and 125% Solution. Then ended up going back to Intel to experience a week off without pay and a layoff; unfortunately, the first, for me, of many. At least I wasn't laid off...
 
I think Intel has lost the knack for capital investment they used to have. Capital investment is what keeps driving costs down, which in turn keeps sales growing and revenue increasing. A virtuous cycle. They have slipped into a vicious cycle: Falling investment, falling sales, and "flat" revenue ("flat" being an engineered term for PCs declining, but lumping PC+server+tablet+mobile together you are roughly flat).

It looks like they've reached the top of the S-curve in their core markets and now have to find some less mature markets that have better growth prospects. For a long time Intel has made defensive moves (Altera is defensive). Taking more of a startup mentality with developing lots of small projects that could grow (somewhat like Google) might serve Intel better.
 
There are claims the managers are fabricating false performance reviews to layoff employees. The Oregon and Arizona site seem like environments that you don't want to work in.
 
Daniel Payne said:
Wow, that would be really devious. The Intel that I remember had way more integrity than that.
Click to expand...
The Focal process has undergone some significant changes and, IMO, not for the better.

Sometime around 1995, employees started writing their own reviews and managers just added rank/rate info, sometimes modifying/adding content to support their opinion. Somewhere along the line, the hardcore ranking/rating which subjected all manager assessments to peer review went away.
 
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