Job fair aims to attract workers laid off by Intel

PORTLAND — Semiconductor manufacturer GlobalFoundries will host a Portland job fair next month, hoping to pick up workers who lost their jobs in Intel’s mass layoff in the spring.

GlobalFoundries is not hiring for positions in Oregon; its jobs are at its Fab 8 manufacturing site in Albany, N.Y. The company is a contract manufacturer that was created when Intel’s much-smaller rival Advanced Micro Devices spun off its production arm in 2009.

Intel laid off 784 Oregon workers in April. The cuts were the first step in a plan to cull 12,000 jobs companywide by the middle of 2017 to prepare for long-term decline in Intel’s core market, PCs and laptops. The chipmaker had 19,500 Oregon employees before the layoffs began last spring.

Oregon tech employers have held two large job fairs since Intel began downsizing, attracting hundreds, but laid-off workers report relatively few hires at each event. The semiconductor industry is highly specialized and — outside of Intel — there is relatively little market for advanced chip skills in Oregon.

GlobalFoundries said it quietly held a Portland job fair last July for development engineers with doctorates and hired 15 people from that event. December’s job fair is for front-line workers: equipment and maintenance technicians with experience in various stages of the semiconductor manufacturing process.

“We have been successful at hiring quality and experienced professionals from Portland in the past,” GlobalFoundries recruiter Nick Esteban said in an email.

GlobalFoundries is holding additional job fairs in Arizona, where Intel also has a large presence, and in New York. The company said it will provide relocation assistance to those it hires from Oregon.