Intel's retreat is unlike anything it's done before in Oregon

Summary

Over the five decades Intel has operated in Oregon, its local footprint had moved in just one direction: Upward.From a single factory in Aloha that opened in 1976, the chipmaker grew into the state’s largest corporate employer and one of Oregon’s primary economic engines. Intel spent billions of dollars every year to equip its Hillsboro factories and brought top scientists from around the globe to Oregon to develop the world’s most advanced computer chips.Intel would sometimes cut jobs during fallow periods but it backfilled them almost immediately. As recently as last year, the company was touting a massive expansion that could add thousands more Oregon jobs.Instead, Intel has embarked on an unprecedented and sustained campaign to shrink its business in response to a series of technical and financial crises. And Oregon is bearing the brunt of the pain, with Intel making the deepest cuts to its local workforce ever.Intel has eliminated at least 5,400 Oregon jobs since August – including 2,400 layoffs in just the past week. The company’s local workforce appears to have fallen under 18,000, the lowest point in more than a decade. Sources inside Intel say there are more cuts to come in the weeks ahead. Many of those who lost their jobs worked in technical fields in an industry that pays an average wage of $180,000 a year. Those were great jobs and helped buoy the whole state, but most won’t find similar work locally.“A lot of them are likely going to have to leave Oregon, which means that we lose our friends and neighbors, their talent and we lose that tax base as well,” said Hillsboro Mayor Beach Pace.Intel’s struggles, coupled with setbacks at other Oregon institutions like Nike and Oregon Health & Science University, could put the state’s knowledge economy at risk. Or, the workers who run those organizations could spark an eventual rebound in the state’s economy instead of a downward spiral. “The pool of human capital that we already have, the knowledge, the skilled...