Several hundred employees at Intel Israel's development centers in Haifa, Petah Tikva and Jerusalem will receive dismissal notices this week, after thousands of their colleagues in the US have been laid off. In August Intel announced it would be cutting 15% of its workforce, shedding an estimated 15,000 to 17,000 employees. 7,500 have already agreed to take voluntary retirement, which includes 19 extra monthly salary payments.
Most of the layoffs in Israel are in the development centers rather than the production plant in Kiryat Gat due to the construction of the new Fab 38 plant, which when completed will require more production employees.
Intel currently has 11,000 employees in Israel including 7,000 in development centers and 4,000 in production. Several hundred Intel employees have accepted the company's voluntary retirement plan while several hundred more will be dismissed this week.
Intel employees upgrading to Nvidia
Even before the completion of the layoff process at Intel it is becoming clear that in Israel the biggest beneficiary from the turmoil at the company, which was once at the pinnacle of the global chip industry, is its big rival Nvidia.
By examining the updates of profiles on the LinkedIn social network, "Globes" has found that in 2024 at least 30 employees have left Intel and joined Nvidia's offices in Yokneam and Tel Aviv, including veteran employees who have worked at Intel for a decade or two. These employees include core processor development engineers, hardware architecture professionals, electric power management staff, and chip design software developers. According to estimates, the total number of Intel employees who have been hired by Nvidia in recent months ranges from 60-90 people, and since the wave of voluntary retirement and layoffs at Intel has not yet ended, it looks likely that Nvidia will hire several dozen more employees from Intel in the coming months, bringing the number to about 100. Nvidia declined to comment.
Nvidia is currently undergoing major expansion in Israel and has hired hundreds of employees since the start of the year from other companies and new university graduates. In its latest report Nvidia had 4,000 employees in Israel on June 30.
Most of the employees who left Intel for Nvidia this year did so in recent months with the pace picking up this month. A large group of former Intel employees recently left for other big tech companies, including Apple, Amazon, and Mobileye, a subsidiary of Intel. To a lesser extent, "Globes" has found, additional groups of former employees have been hired by Microsoft, Google and Chinese company Huawei, which has a development center in Haifa.
Available data show that in leaving Intel for Nvidia, employees are upgrading their salaries and remuneration packages. According to the levels.fyi website, a junior hardware engineer's starting salary is NIS 566,000 per year or NIS 47,000 per month including share options and bonuses - 33% higher on average than at Intel. The average monthly salary for a junior hardware engineer starting out at Nvidia (ICI level) is NIS 41,400 per month. A junior hardware engineer in a similar position (level 5) at Intel earns NIS 425,700 per year including bonuses and share options, or NIS 32,700 per month.
The biggest gap between Intel and Nvidia is in the share options, according to Levels.fyi. The value of the share option package for a hardware engineer at Intel begins at NIS 19,300 per year, while at Nvidia the annual share option package begins at NIS 56,200 per year.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on October 28, 2024.
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