Employees at several production groups of US semiconductor giant Intel in Kiryat Gat today began to receive voluntary retirement offers from Intel Israel management. The offers include packages of retirement benefits.
Informed sources told "Globes" that the background to the measure was changes in the make-up of the workforce at Intel's main activity site in Israel, as part of a move by the global company at all its sites.
Intel's activity in Kiryat Gat is about to undergo a significant upgrade by 2017 that will make its fab there the company's most advanced anywhere in the world. The company recently undertook to invest NIS 22 billion in the fab. The company will receive a NIS 1.1 billion grant from the state and a reduced 5% corporate tax rate. As part of this agreement, Intel undertook to hire 1,000 additional workers with the fab's upgrade, making a total of 4,000 employees in Kiryat Gat.
A source knowledgeable about the retirement plans offered to Intel workers in Kiryat Gat said today that the program was voluntary, and the employees would not be obligated to accept it, and could in any case continue working there. The voluntary retirement offer to some of the company's employees includes up to 20 months' salary, grants, bonuses, and options amounting to up to several hundred thousand shekels. This is the first time that Intel Israel has offered retirement packages to production workers; at the beginning of the year, the company offered voluntary retirement packages to its development workers in Israel and at its other sites around the world.
Together with the changes in the make-up of its staff at its sites, the company is preparing for extensive training of employees who will remain in its workforce after the Kiryat Gat fab is upgraded. Informed sources said that the company was hiring new staff at the same time, and intended to fulfill its commitment under the new investment agreement as part of the development of its Kiryat Gat fab. p>Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on October 21, 2014
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