Hundreds of Layoffs Predicted at Intel Israel

Layoffs at the high tech giant Intel are expected to affect the company’s Israeli branch as well, industry sources told Globes on Wednesday.

Hundreds of Intel’s 12,000 employees in Israel are in danger of losing their jobs as part of the company’s plan to fire 11% of its 107,000 worldwide staff.

Maxine Fassberg, CEO of Intel Israel, would only say in response that “the measure is a global one, and we are studying its effect on activity in Israel.”

The company headquarters in Israel said, “One thing is certain: Intel will fulfill its commitments to the Israeli government.”

That was a reference to commitments to the Ministries of Finance and Economy and Industry two years ago, when it received a NIS 1.1 billion grant from the Ministry of Economy and Industry Investment Promotion Center to develop its production activity in Kiryat Gat. The benefits granted to Intel by the state also included a reduction of corporate taxation to 5%.

Under those agreements, Intel is investing over $6 billion in a new production center in the Kiryat Gat industrial zone, and work on the center is in the final stages. When completed, staff employed at the production site in Kiryat Gat are slated to increase by 1,000 to 4,000.

“I’m not worried,” Israel Association of Electronics and Software Industries chairman and former Motorola Israel president Elisha Yanay told Globes. He added that he believes that the layoffs in Israel will be on a small scale.