FOLSOM, Calif. — Intel Corporation plans to lay off approximately 200 employees in early 2023. The mass layoff will take place at two of its locations, including the Folsom and Santa Clara campus.
The technology company plans to remove about 111 employees at its Folsom location and 90 at its Santa Clara location, according to a notice filed to the California Employment Development Department.
Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) is a 60-day notice employers must file when layoffs impact 50 or more workers within a 30-day period.
“All impacted employees are being notified of separation with at least 60 days notice, with the first separations presently scheduled to occur during a 14-day period commencing on Jan. 31, 2023,” stated Carolann Bullock, Intel’s Vice President and Director of Employment and Labor Legal Group, in the WARN notice. “No employees will have the right to bump or displace other employees and there is no union representing affected employees.”
Intel is one of the Sacramento area’s top five employers and Folsom’s largest private-sector employer with over 6,100 employees. The company is terminating almost 2% of its capital region’s workforce.
According to Intel's website, the Folsom campus is a research and development site where employees create, test and validate the next generation of chips and chipsets, including desktop, mobile and server processor products.
“While layoffs are not good news, it is reassuring that Intel still employs more than 5,000 employees in Folsom and continues to invest in our community,” said Christine Brainerd, communications director for the city of Folsom, in a statement. “We are told that Intel will continue to hire new positions at the Folsom campus in the future.”
ABC10 spoke to an employee who worked at the Folsom campus for nearly 29 years. The employee says they participated in the voluntary application program because of the company’s non-disclosed selection criteria to layoff an employee.
“In my business group, we were given 10 days to apply to be cut,” the now laid-off employee told ABC10. “The application consisted of an absurdly simple web app that simply asked ‘yes or no’ as to whether we wanted to apply for the layoffs. That was it.”
The employee says a group was cut Nov. 4 and other groups are still going through the process of selecting who will eventually be notified about their job termination.
"Corporate People Movement" is the new program label for the 2022-2023 season of layoffs, the employee told ABC10.
”My approval email came around noon the day before Thanksgiving,” said the employee. “It was a very corporate, cold email that essentially said, ‘Your application into CPM was approved.' It's now mid-December and some employees still have no idea whether/when they might be cut. That's really sad, Intel's employees really deserve better.”
ABC10 sent a list of questions to Intel about the employee's claims surrounding the process. They sent back the following statement:
"As discussed on our Q3 earnings call, Intel is working to accelerate its strategy while navigating a challenging macro-economic environment. We are focused on identifying cost reductions and efficiency gains through multiple initiatives, including some business and function-specific workforce reductions in areas across the company. We have more than 13,000 employees in California and continue to invest in areas core to our business, including our U.S.-based manufacturing operations, to ensure we are well-positioned for long-term growth.
These are difficult decisions, and we are committed to treating impacted employees with dignity and respect."
Watch more from ABC10: Holiday Scams | Better Business Bureau gives tips to avoid getting scammed this holiday season
