TMCnet News
Intel's campus to grow(Sacramento Bee, The (CA) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Feb. 10--Intel Corp., growing again after years of cutbacks, said Thursday it will add a major new building to its research and development complex in Folsom. The $100 million building, to be completed late next year, will symbolize the resurgence of the tech economy in general and Intel in particular. The semiconductor giant quietly hired 500 workers in Folsom last year and expects to hire as many as 280 workers this year, spokeswoman Teri Munger said. "This is what we've been kind of expecting," said David Lyons, labor market consultant at the state Employment Development Department. "We knew that the industry would turn around; it has taken longer than many of us expected." By historical standards, the payroll expansion is a modest one. In one year alone during the technology boom, Intel hired 1,000 workers in the area. The company's area employment peaked at around 8,000 workers in early 2001, rivaling the Intel work force at headquarters in Santa Clara. Then came the dot-com bust, the tech slump and several years of downsizing, mostly through attrition. With last year's hiring, Intel today employs 7,000 workers in the area, all in Folsom. The company is greater Sacramento's largest private employer. The semiconductor industry has been "climbing out of that hole for a long time," said Nathan Brookwood, principal analyst at Saratoga consultant Insight 64. "Everyone from Intel on down felt that pain." The new building will accommodate 1,500 workers, many of whom will spill over from cramped quarters elsewhere on the Folsom campus. The site is so crowded that Intel soon will move 300 workers to a former Intel complex near Rancho Cordova, Munger said. "We're maxed out," she said. Among other things, employees in the new building will work on products for Intel's flash memory business, which includes chips used in cell phones, and its digital health business, which includes chips for diagnostic equipment and the personal health care field. The new four-story building will be a reconfigured version of a structure Intel was going to build in 2001. The company halted the project as part of a cost-cutting move as the tech economy began its slump. This time, Intel is scrapping the parking garage planned five years ago but will build additional surface parking space instead, Munger said. Although business has brightened in the past couple of years, Intel continues to battle a volatile marketplace. In January, it said fourth-quarter profits rose 16 percent but fell short of Wall Street analysts' expectations. The company further rattled investors by issuing a disappointing revenue forecast for the first quarter. The company continues to wrestle with a challenge from the No. 2 microprocessor maker, Advanced Micro Devices Inc., which has been chipping away at Intel's market share the past few years. Still, Intel controls an estimated 80 percent of the market for microprocessors embedded in desktops, notebooks and servers, Brookwood said. "They're holding their own," he said. |