In Israel Nvidia snaps up employees leaving Intel

Several hundred employees at Intel Israel’s development centers in Haifa, Petah Tikva and Jerusalem will receive layoff notices this week, after thousands of their colleagues in the United States were laid off. In August, Intel announced that it would cut 15% of its workforce, cutting between 15,000 and 17,000 employees. 7,500 people have already agreed to voluntary retirement, which includes 19 additional monthly salary payments.

Most of the layoffs in Israel are taking place at development centers and not at the production plant in Kiryat Gat due to the construction of the new Fab 38 factory, 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 laid off this week.

Intel employees upgrade to Nvidia

Even before Intel’s layoffs were finalized, it became clear that the biggest beneficiary in Israel of the turmoil at the company, which was once at the top of the global chip industry, was its major rival, Nvidia.

By examining profile updates on the social network LinkedIn, Globes found that in 2024, at least 30 employees left Intel and joined Nvidia’s offices in Yokneam and Tel Aviv, including veteran employees who had worked at Intel for A decade or two. . These employees include core processor development engineers, hardware engineering specialists, electrical power management personnel, and chip design software developers. According to estimates, the total number of Intel employees hired by Nvidia in recent months is between 60-90 people, and since the wave of voluntary retirement and layoffs at Intel has not yet ended, Nvidia is likely to hire many more employees. Ten more Intel employees in the coming months, bringing the number to about 100. Nvidia declined to comment.

Nvidia is currently undergoing a major expansion in Israel, and has hired hundreds of employees since the beginning of the year from other companies and recent university graduates. At its last report, Nvidia had 4,000 employees in Israel on June 30.

Most employees leaving Intel to work at Nvidia this year did so in recent months, with the pace accelerating this month. A large group of former Intel employees have recently left for other major tech companies, including Apple, Amazon and Mobileye, a subsidiary of Intel. To a lesser extent, Globes found that additional groups of former employees have been hired by Microsoft, Google and the Chinese company Huawei, which has a development center in Haifa.

Available data suggests that when leaving Intel and moving to Nvidia, employees upgrade their salaries and pay packages. According to levels.fyi, the starting salary for a junior hardware engineer is NIS 566,000 per year or NIS 47,000 per month including stock options and bonuses – 33% higher on average than Intel. The average monthly salary for a junior hardware engineer starting 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 sharing options, according to Levels.fyi. The value of the hardware engineer’s share options package at Intel starts at NIS 19,300 per year, while the value of the annual share options package at Nvidia is NIS 56,200 per year.

Published by Globes, Israel Business News – en.globes.co.il – on October 28, 2024.

© Copyright Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd., 2024.