It's midway through Intel Corp.'s most thorough self-assessment in 20 years, and the company's almost 11,000 Arizona employees are getting anxious.
They understand that their jobs could be changing and they are eager to get on with it.
"We're process-driven and people want to know what the change is so they can go out and fix it," said Dawn Jones, a spokeswoman for Intel at its Chandler campus. "It's on everyone's mind."
On April 27, Chief Executive Officer Paul Otellini announced a 90-day companywide evaluation that would leave no stone unturned in an effort to reverse a business slump and trim $1 billion in costs this year.
"You can't make that kind of a cut without some people being affected," Jones said.
The company is fighting a slowdown in growth, declining stock price, and loss of market share to competitors such as Advanced Micro Devices of Austin, Texas.
On Thursday, Otellini gave a Webcast for employees. He primarily answered questions and did not give any details about a restructuring.
Executive blogs and employee newsletters, though, have indicated that jobs could be eliminated or changed.
There have been unconfirmed reports that as many as 16,000 of the company's 100,000 global workers could be redeployed or laid off.
"We've been trying to figure out where that number came from," Jones said.
Redeployment is a paid period, generally three months, during which employees whose jobs are being eliminated can seek another job within the company. Traditionally, most redeployed employees have found other jobs at Intel, Jones said, although some do wind up leaving.
"We don't look at how many people we can cut, but how can we deploy them more effectively," Jones said.
The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company has not had large-scale layoffs since the mid-1980s when it abandoned making generic memory chips for microprocessors and axed thousands of employees.
About 11,000 workers were shed in the few years after the dot-com bust, largely through buyouts and attrition.
Heads of the dozen or so business groups that make up Intel's Arizona operations have studied their sections, looking for ways to be more effective. They have reported to a central committee that will recommend an action plan that could include selling unprofitable business units, closing plants and cutting jobs.
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