Up to 60,000 jobs could be lost in the Philippines’ key electronics sector after Intel Corp shut a facility and Texas Instruments (TI) announced a number of layoffs, an official said yesterday.
Intel, the world’s biggest computer chip maker, announced plans on Wednesday to close plants in Malaysia, the Philippines and the US, with the loss of 1,800 jobs in its assembly test facility in Cavite province south of Manila.
TI, another big US player in the sector, told the government last month it was laying off 400 workers from its semiconductor factory in the northern city of Baguio because of the global financial crisis.
The cuts highlight the poor state of the electronics industry and could be the beginning of a wave of job losses in the sector.
“The impact of the economic downturn on our business was more severe than we anticipated and the outlook is uncertain,” Intel Philippines said in a statement explaining the closure of its facility.
The laid-off employees “will be offered a severance package” and various “transition services” the company statement said without giving details.
Intel was once one of the biggest exporters in the Philippines and one of the first to set up semiconductor manufacturing facilities there 35 years ago, investing about US$1 billion over that time, its Web site said.
“The semiconductor industry is already getting hit,” Philippine Labor Secretary Marianito Roque told ABS-CBN television in an interview.
“We have seen this as early as three months ago,” he said.
“We expected that we’ll be getting hit in the first semester of this year,” he said.
Roque said the government was giving counseling and retraining to “about 60,000 workers that could be affected nationwide.”
The labor department is “getting daily notices now not only of retrenchments but on the reduction of work shifts, reduction of working hours and compression of the work week,” he said.
Plants employing 19,000 people have so far reduced shifts or working hours, he said, but did not specify how many had been laid off.
“We have to admit that this is not business as usual in the Philippines for the electronics sector and in the garments sector as well,” Roque said.
“These will be the two particular areas that would be affected by the global financial crisis,” he said.
The electronics sector accounts for about 70 percent of the Philippines’ exports and employs 480,000 workers.
Roque said Manila expected the business process outsourcing sector to take up some of the slack, with a “nominal growth” in the call center industry creating about 130,000 jobs this year.
The Philippines also hopes to send its workers to “hotel jobs in Bulgaria and even manufacturing jobs also in some countries like Australia.”
Super Typhoon Kong-rey is the largest cyclone to impact Taiwan in 27 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. Kong-rey’s radius of maximum wind (RMW) — the distance between the center of a cyclone and its band of strongest winds — has expanded to 320km, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. The last time a typhoon of comparable strength with an RMW larger than 300km made landfall in Taiwan was Typhoon Herb in 1996, he said. Herb made landfall between Keelung and Suao (蘇澳) in Yilan County with an RMW of 350km, Chang said. The weather station in Alishan (阿里山) recorded 1.09m of
STORM’S PATH: Kong-Rey could be the first typhoon to make landfall in Taiwan in November since Gilda in 1967. Taitung-Green Island ferry services have been halted Tropical Storm Kong-rey is forecast to strengthen into a typhoon early today and could make landfall in Taitung County between late Thursday and early Friday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 2pm yesterday, Kong-Rey was 1,030km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), the nation’s southernmost point, and was moving west at 7kph. The tropical storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 101kph, with gusts of up to 126 kph, CWA data showed. After landing in Taitung, the eye of the storm is forecast to move into the Taiwan Strait through central Taiwan on Friday morning, the agency said. With the storm moving
NO WORK, CLASS: President William Lai urged people in the eastern, southern and northern parts of the country to be on alert, with Typhoon Kong-rey approaching Typhoon Kong-rey is expected to make landfall on Taiwan’s east coast today, with work and classes canceled nationwide. Packing gusts of nearly 300kph, the storm yesterday intensified into a typhoon and was expected to gain even more strength before hitting Taitung County, the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said. The storm is forecast to cross Taiwan’s south, enter the Taiwan Strait and head toward China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The CWA labeled the storm a “strong typhoon,” the most powerful on its scale. Up to 1.2m of rainfall was expected in mountainous areas of eastern Taiwan and destructive winds are likely
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday at 5:30pm issued a sea warning for Typhoon Kong-rey as the storm drew closer to the east coast. As of 8pm yesterday, the storm was 670km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and traveling northwest at 12kph to 16kph. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 162kph and gusts of up to 198kph, the CWA said. A land warning might be issued this morning for the storm, which is expected to have the strongest impact on Taiwan from tonight to early Friday morning, the agency said. Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and Green Island (綠島) canceled classes and work
RSS