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7 Shevat 5761 - January 31, 2001 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
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NEWS
Intel Israel is Israel's Biggest Exporter; Hiring More Research Workers
by Yated Ne'eman Staff

Intel Israel -- which includes a billion dollar manufacturing plant in Jerusalem, a two billion dollar plant in Kiryat Gat, a research and development center in Haifa and two smaller companies that Intel bought in 1999 -- is Israel's largest exporter with total exports of over $2 billion. This is a big jump from the previous year when it exported $810 million.

The company's new Kiryat Gat plant exported $1.3 billion, and the Jerusalem plant and the Haifa development center each exported $300 million. The DSPC and Dialogic plants together accounted for the balance. PC processors were the main item exported.

Altogether, 5,200 workers are employed in Intel Israel's three major plants, and Intel Israel exported $400,000 per worker. Intel said that the Kiryat Gat plant's exports exceeded expectations, reaching $3.5 million a day.

Intel sources said that Intel International's investment in Israel is currently estimated at $2.7 billion, with government grants amounting to $800 million. The grants, the largest ever given to a single company, were controversial at the time, with some saying that such enormous sums could be better spent otherwise. The good figures provide some vindication for the investment, since at least so far the company has performed at or better than expectations.

Intel's 2000 revenue was $33.7 billion.

Recently Intel also opened a new design center in Yakum, just south of Netanya. In its other operations, the company built its own facilities, but in Yakum it rented office space to start up quickly. The center had recruited 17 workers when it opened, with plans to hire up to a total of 100. An Intel official said that Yakum operation was planned as a dynamic place, and that "the 17 staff recruited so far to work in Yakum were employed because they were highly creative, out of the mainstream, and undisciplined." The official said that Intel has plans to open additional locations in the future.

The Yakum center is a departure from Intel's Development Center in Haifa that originally opened in 1974 and now employs some 1,400 workers. Intel chose to open a new center rather than expand the existing one in order to have access to an expanded pool of potential employees. Located between Netanya and Tel Aviv, the new center in Yakum can draw from all over the central region.

Intel is encouraged by the forecasts for a drop in high-tech activity in the coming year, hoping that it will make it easier for them to find talented workers.

The Yakum Center, which will be headed by Effi Klein, will focus on developing chip sets for mobile computers. "The rate of growth for mobile computers, which today is a $5 billion industry, is expected to be much higher than that of desktop computers," explained an official. "The Yakum and Haifa groups will be working alongside a . . . group in Santa Clara."

Intel says that the Yakum Center has been designed to encourage creative thought in a comfortable, rural work environment. It is also designed to allow flexibility for other workers based at Intel's other locations. A Netanya resident based in Haifa, for example, should be able to work from the Yakum center a few days each week. A similar arrangement has been installed at Intel's Gush Tefen operations in the Galilee.

This system has already been introduced in Intel's San Francisco offices to ease the daily commute to the Silicon Valley which is very difficult because of the congested roads. Intel believes that this approach may spread in the future since it is efficient and meets the needs of employees and employers.

 

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