Intel Closes Costa Rica Operation, Cuts 1,500 Jobs

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According to Reuters, Intel is closing its Costa Rica plant and eliminating 1,500 jobs.

Chipmaker Intel, struggling with a shrinking personal computer market, is shutting its assembly and test operation in Costa Rica and eliminating 1,500 jobs, a spokesman said on Tuesday.The closure of the site, which is a significant contributor to Costa Rica's exports, falls within a larger plan announced by the chipmaker earlier this year to cut spending as it attempts to grow beyond PCs into the mobile market.
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The market isn't really shrinking (as in a significant amount of people are moving away from laptops/desktops).

Is is more because the computers that people have purchased in the past few years are plenty fast for what they need to do and will continue to be just fine for quite a while. This is especially true for the casual users.

I see a huge boom in the market happening once people start having issues with XP since it is no longer supported by MS in the consumer market.
 
well in terms iof intel its shrinking.

hardware sales have nosedived, but of course people still use pc's they have just stopped buying them.

sales may or may not go up again in future, I agree old rigs on XP will need upgrading for win7/8/9 but the question is will touch devices manage to stop people bothering before that time comes.

Small is fashionable, portable is fashionable, it seems for non enthusiasts touch is a preffered interface, the touch market has massively dumbed down computing (its even affecting websites that are been dumbed down for touch devices) and I fear the peak of computing is behind us. and I do admit eg. if we compare say a CRT display to a LCD display, the cRT seems bulky and obselete, and tower pc's next to somethign like a tablet would seem the same way to those who dont understand the power of whats inside them.
 
SSD makers have it so good. They have a solid state electronic product that actually wears out. Even better, with every new generation they increase yields and decrease service life. Intel can only dream of such a business model.
 
Kueller said:
SSD makers have it so good. They have a solid state electronic product that actually wears out. Even better, with every new generation they increase yields and decrease service life. Intel can only dream of such a business model.
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Uhm. Sure. Put down that crackpipe, dude.

SSDs "wear out", at a pace of 70 years before the first unwritable block at normal usage patterns.

You do also realise that Intel is one of the world's largest manufacturers of NAND? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X25-M
 
Companies, especially huge companies like Intel do this all the time. It sucks for the people who work there but its one of the ways companies stay ahead of the curve and survive.
 
This announcement is devastating for Costa Rica. Not only was that packaging plant responsible for 20% of the value of Costa Rica's exports last year, the economic effects of the plant and workers will also be disappearing.

MindBuster said:
aww, my pentium 133mhz was made in costa rica :(
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*packaged in Costa Rica. :p There is no Intel fab in Costa Rica.
 
Ashame. Didn't some of the best OC chips from Intel get assembled at that plant? I don't believe they actually produced the silicon, only assemble. If that's the case they must have had some voodoo working for them.
 
Yeah... that sucks. This 4.7Ghz 4770k I hunted down is a Costa. I had a good feeling about it. It was the last one of three I opened all at the same time.
 
Yeah I remember people saying to look for the Costa Rica Q6600s, I found one for cheap and it sailed to 3.6 easy before I sold it off :(
I'll try and find a good 3930k or 4770k from CR then!

pxc said:
Not only was that packaging plant responsible for 20% of the value of Costa Rica's exports last year, the economic effects of the plant and workers will also be disappearing.
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Holy hell that is a lot of loss. I really hope Intel may think of the impact this is having and try to help any skilled workers or do something for those affected.
 
runudownquick said:
something[/I] for those affected.
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We generally let people apply for jobs at other sites... I think in CR's case it's problematic as there would be immigration issues.

Most of the people who were redeployed from Fab 11x founds jobs at other sites.
 
I love how they say that Intel are "struggling with a shrinking personal computer market..." I wonder if they actually checked Intel's earnings before writing this crap.
 
Cobalt35 said:
I love how they say that Intel are "struggling with a shrinking personal computer market..." I wonder if they actually checked Intel's earnings before writing this crap.
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I don't believe most people really care about CPU's anymore. Fast and Cheap! Spend the coin on the GPU.
 
ICOM said:
I don't believe most people really care about CPU's anymore. Fast and Cheap! Spend the coin on the GPU.
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Intel has been increasing revenue steadily for a while now, they aren't slowing down either.
 
chrcoluk said:
well in terms iof intel its shrinking.
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Intel isn't shrinking. Not even close. Intel is just changing course. Probably the only company I know of that size that is actually that nimble. The truth is, it is much cheaper to just close an strip a plant than retrofit it for technology. Also..costa rica has some serious policy issues in terms keep international companies there.

Look at Intel's long term performance. It isn't missing the mark at all. They were actually in a very odd bubble during the last recession. Their high profits during that time was abnormal. They are now more aligned with nominal expectations. Sorry, but a lot of time experts an analysts are in the pockets of fund managers trying to force company to meet a certain number. It was they same people who loaded up mutual funds with stock that had 200:1+ PE ratios during the dot-com boom. Somebody made money..it wasn't the mutual fund holders.
 
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