Mass Intel layoffs will hit Oregon economy hard

Earlier this month the semiconductor chip maker Intel announced it would layoff nearly 2,400 workers in Washington County, amounting to about 10% of its overall workforce.

Nonetheless, the company remains one of Oregon’s largest private employers, and the ripple effects of its contraction will be felt more broadly throughout the state economy.

OPB business reporter Kyra Buckley has been following this story, and she joins us to bring us the latest.

Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.

Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. One of the biggest engines of Oregon’s economy is sputtering. Earlier this month, the semiconductor chip maker Intel announced it was laying off nearly 2,400 workers in Washington County. Intel remains one of Oregon’s largest private employers, but the ripple effects of this contraction could be felt throughout the state economy.

OPB business reporter Kyra Buckley has been following this story, and she joins us with the latest. Great to have you on the show.

Kyra Buckley: Thanks for having me.

Miller: All right, I mentioned that raw number, close to 2,400 people laid off this month. That’s on top of 1,300 people who lost their jobs at Intel in Oregon last fall. Can you just put this in perspective? What percentage of Intel’s Oregon workforce are we talking about?

Buckley: Yeah, so the most recent cuts, it’s about 10% of Oregon’s workforce for Intel. Let’s take a little bit of a step back. So at its peak a few years ago, Intel had about 23,000 employees here in Oregon. Now, Oregon has a workforce of about 2 million, so that represents like 1% of Oregon’s overall workforce. That number has gone down a little bit. As you just mentioned, last year there were some layoffs, that 1,300 number that happened in the fall of last year. So when these most recent cuts happened, we were looking more at about 20,000 people working at Intel. We’re looking at closer to 18,000. So that’s a lot of people for both the state and for Intel, even though Intel is still going to be one of our biggest employers.

Miller: Has the company ever had layoffs in Oregon of this magnitude before?

Buckley: Not that I could tell. I went back and looked at the notices that they have to file with the state. I saw that about 25 years ago there were nearly 400 people laid off. In 2016, there was a bit of a downturn. There were nearly 800 people laid off, but this appears to be the largest concentrated number of layoffs we’ve seen.

Miller: Do you have a sense for what kinds of jobs are being lost?

Buckley: I do, actually Intel has to report that to the state, so anybody can go and look at the list of, not the names, but positions of people being cut. A lot of engineers, a lot of mid-level executives and managers. Analysts, folks that look at the business side of the company, the marketing staff, communications people. Dave, the local communications person that I normally work with when I’m looking for a comment from Intel, she let me know that she was affected by the layoffs.

Miller: How has the company explained these layoffs?

Buckley: So, first I want to talk about Intel’s leadership because that has been a bit of a shakeup. So at the end of last year, Pat Gelsinger, he abruptly retired. A lot of people think that the board was essentially asking him to step down. And then CEO Lip-Bu Tan took over his position earlier this year, and one of the first things he talked about was that Intel is just too complex. Like it’s just too hard to get decisions made. So the thing that he keeps saying is he wants to “remove organizational complexity.” That’s a direct quote. He said that on a bunch of earnings calls, anytime he’s talking to investors.

So he wants to create smaller teams that are more empowered to make decisions. He thinks that that’s going to lead to more innovation, which is something that analysts have said that Intel has been lacking. And Tan says that this is so Intel can compete better, essentially that these smaller teams will help them compete with their rivals, which are operating with fewer employees than Intel is.

Miller: How did Intel get into this position? I mean, why are they laying off so many people?

Buckley: Yeah, Intel is already unique in the semiconductor world, so a lot of companies do one aspect of computer chips, they design them or they manufacture them, or some other part of the supply chain. Intel does all of that. So there’s really only a few rivals that Intel has – Nvidia, AMD, TSMC. Basically, those rivals got a lot of the big contracts when new technology like cell phones, artificial intelligence … and Intel lost out on those contracts. I cannot stress how huge this was, that essentially analysts were saying that Intel just missed the boat and is playing catch up right now.

So that’s kind of how Intel got into this situation. Also, Intel’s invested a bunch of money in manufacturing computer chips. But it takes a lot of time to build a manufacturing facility, like a decade or more. So it’s going to be a little bit till they see the profits from that. All of this kind of came together last year so that Intel ended up reporting a loss of nearly $19 billion.

Miller: So do you get the sense that employees in Oregon were expecting this level of layoffs?

Buckley: Yeah, I was wondering about that and I asked Jon Metzler. He teaches at the UC Berkeley Business School. He’s studied Intel as an anchor company here in Oregon. He also used to work in the semiconductor industry. Here’s what he said:

Jon Metzler [recording]: I can’t say this is probably a huge surprise to people working at Intel. Certainly management had been signaling this for a while. There had been previous views that Intel under Gelsinger had undercut, that maybe he could have done more quickly. So if you were there, I don’t know if you were necessarily surprised, and you’ve probably had some time to prepare and think about that. Do I stay local or am I willing to uproot and move somewhere else?

Buckley: Metzler also told me that some of those laid off Intel workers, if they want to stay local, they might rally and maybe we could see some startup companies. He also mentioned other semiconductor companies that are operating here in Oregon. This is a great time to be hiring.

Miller: Does it seem, though, like more layoffs are on the horizon or is Intel at a relatively stable place right now?

Buckley: Yeah, I asked Metzler about this too, and he expects that more layoffs are coming. He talked about revenue per employee and that Intel’s losing out to competitors. Nvidia makes almost twice as much money per employee than Intel does and has way fewer employees. So that’s one of the reasons why analysts are saying that more cuts are likely coming.

And Dave, I just want to mention we’ve been talking about very Intel-specific issues, but Intel is gonna be impacted, as is every semiconductor company by what’s happening in the global economy. There’s a lot of trade tensions right now and the semiconductor industry here in Oregon is the biggest exporter and importer, so it could be challenging times on the horizon.

Miller: Well, how is the overall semiconductor or electronics component manufacturing industry in Oregon doing these days?

Buckley: Again, I was wondering about this because Intel is just one company and they have a lot of issues that maybe are unique to Intel, yet it is just a chaotic time in the global economy. I called Gail Krumenauer. She’s the employment economist for the state. And she said that the semiconductor industry was shedding jobs before Intel announced the latest job cuts.

Gail Krumenauer [recording]: Well, looking just at the past year, we can see that the semiconductor and electronic component manufacturing industry has been on the decline. Between May of 2024 and May of 2025, the industry lost almost 3,000 jobs. It’s down by 8% over the year.

Buckley: So I asked Krumenauer about what job growth overall looks like in Oregon, like, essentially is the semiconductor industry dragging our job growth down? And she told me it was a little bit of a mixed bag. We do have other industries, namely health care, that are adding jobs, but she said it’s pretty concerning that the semiconductor industry has been shedding so many jobs.

And Dave, you probably noticed that Oregon’s unemployment rate still is pretty low, but it has been ticking up by about 0.1% since December, and it’s now approaching 5%. So our economists are saying that, yes, there are some things pointing towards a healthy economy, but job losses like these are pointing to some concerning things.

Miller: And these are also, in general, really well paying jobs compared to the state average. What does all this mean for Oregon’s economy?

Buckley: Yeah, less revenue for Oregon in general. As you just mentioned, Intel employees tend to make six-figure salaries. Then they go out and spend that money at stores, at restaurants. They go to Thorn’s games. They put money into our economy that then helps to create other jobs, but they also pay taxes. So we are going to see a loss of revenue at the county level. Washington County has already told us, my colleagues that have called them up to ask about that … yeah, they’re expecting less revenue.

And I was wondering, what does this mean for essentially Intel as an anchor company in the state, is it going to continue to be as strong as it’s been? The experts I talked to said Oregon is still very attractive for Intel. It’s close to their headquarters in California. There’s land here and there’s really bright people. Those things are going to continue. But Intel overall is going to be a smaller presence in Oregon and that potentially means contributing less to Oregon’s overall revenue.

Miller: Kyra, thanks very much.

Buckley: Thank you.

Miller: Kyra Buckley is OPB’s business reporter. She joined us to talk about the impact of Intel’s massive layoffs.

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