Last month, Intel finally finished its planned layoffs in Costa Rica hoping to move its workload to Vietnam QCostaRica reports. The layoffs which were announced last April were carried out gradually from June until the end of 2014 and went smoothly according to Timothy Scott manager of customer relations at Intel.
Scott claims that all 1,500 employees who lost their jobs last year received training and support from Intel through job fairs and conventions hosted by other companies, helping to aid their transition. However, of the employees who lost their jobs due to this latest batch of layoffs, only 100 have continued working for Intel in their new project.
Intel opened a new Megalab in Heredia, Costa Rica in December which hired 250 new staff including the 100 previous employees. Despite including this huge influx of new jobs, Intel in Costa Rica ends the year with almost half of the staff they had employed back in April when they made the announcement, reducing staff from 2800 to 1550.
The layoffs were due to the closing of a processing plant and the disconnection of machinery which was donated by other companies in Costa Rica as production now moves to Vietnam. Moving business to Vietnam is seen as lucrative these days as Virgin named Ho Chi Minh City number 1 for business start ups last year quoting low costs as a primary reason, with positions such as in admin or coding hiring for just $500-$1500 a month.
Experts however did warn of a tendency in Vietnam of using "short-cuts" to get ahead in business giving stockholders a reason to be concerned with the quality of future product. Though they did also credit the Vietnamese with a "fierce work ethic."
This news hits the mainstream following other recent news that Intel has chosen to work with controversial projects in a $300million bid to increase diversity in tech. Projects supported include the International Game Developers Association, which encouraged the blacklisting of certain people from the industry, and Feminist Frequency a project critiquing culture from a feminist standpoint, a founder of which has recently mocked French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in the wake of the shooting at Paris headquarters killing 12.
This controversial pairing has caused many to sell their stock with Intel notably Genna Bain CEO and Managing Director of YouTube channel Cynical Brit, quoting "diversity" in her Twitter comment.
