Fairchild lets go of local workers
Fairchild Semiconductor will this week lay off between 50 and 70 employees, part of a 1,100-job reduction in the semiconductor manufacturer's worldwide work force.
Patti Olson, a spokesperson for the South Portland-based firm, told Mainebiz today that the local cuts include voluntary buyouts and pink slips. She declined to be more specific about how many employees accepted a voluntary buyout. The company in early December announced it was reducing its worldwide work force by 1,100, or 12%, citing a decline in demand for its semiconductors, but the impact on the local work force was not previously known. The company employs roughly 900 people between its two locations in South Portland. Olson said the local layoffs were across the board, and include manufacturing and engineering jobs.
Fairchild also recently backed out of a deal to relocate its headquarters to a new building in Scarborough. The announcement last June that Fairchild would move its headquarters into a new, 90,000-square-foot, LEED-certified building in a high-profile Scarborough development was made before the economy crumbled. It took longer for the developer of the Gateway Square development on Haigis Parkway, Gene Beaudoin, to secure the financing needed to start the project, Olson said. Because of the delay, Fairchild determined the building would not be done in time for it to vacate its current headquarters before its lease expired at the end of this year. "It was a timing issue for us," Olson said.
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