Intel’s DuPont site closing, city’s mayor says

Intel appears to be scaling back in Washington state as the Santa Clara, California, semiconductor giant prepares to cut 12,000 jobs from its global workforce.

Intel is closing its facility in DuPont, the city’s mayor has confirmed.

Intel now employs about 350 people in DuPont, said Mayor Mike Courts. He said he does not have an exact timeline of when the office will close.

The company cut back its presence in the city in 2013, when it moved 350 employees from the site. Some employees then moved to the company’s sites in Oregon. It is not clear if that will be the case this time.

The Oregonian first reported the closure of Intel’s DuPont office. Hillsboro, Oregon, a suburb of Portland, is home to Intel’s single largest site.

An Intel spokesman declined to comment on the closures, referring to CEO Brian Krzanich’s email to employees last week, which announced the major workforce cuts.

“We are not providing site-specific information at this time,” spokesman William Moss said in an email.

Even if Intel jobs move out of the area there will still be some employees who choose to stay in the South Sound, said Bruce Kendall, President and CEO of the Economic Development Board for Tacoma-Pierce County.

“Our objective is to have the South Sound capture as many of those high quality employees as we can,” Kendall said on Monday. “They can work for a lot of high quality employers. That’s an opportunity for us. I’ve already had calls from other companies asking, ‘How do I access those employees?’ ”

Intel facilities would make good offices and labs for other companies, Kendall said.

Intel’s move will certainly hurt workers in DuPont, said city administrator Ted Danek, but it won’t be fatal to the city’s economy.

“It’s never good for a city to lose a company like Intel,” Danek said. “Having said that … we have other businesses in the building, and I imagine when Intel leaves, other businesses will move in.”

A few companies have already shown interest in the site, Danek said.

Intel employees in the state work in engineering and product development, according to the website.

Staff writer Craig Sailor contributed to this report.

This story was originally published April 25, 2016 at 12:38 PM with the headline "Intel’s DuPont site closing, city’s mayor says."