End 2015, end of Fairchild’s Penang plant.

This was reported much earlier but recently many have posted this on their Facebook page. Fairchild Semiconductor’s plant in Penang is closing down end of 2015 and 1,000 workers including 500 full-time staffs losing their jobs is quite a huge thing. This number of 1,000 is however lower than what was reported last year. Then, it was said that up to 1,892 staffs would be affected. Hopefully this reduced number is because they were able to find new jobs. A search in JobStreet.com revealed that the number of manufacturing jobs are still aplenty. Do refer to image.
As reported, this is part of a worldwide realignment exercise. As the Penang plant is no longer cost-effective versus other newer and more efficient plants, it would be closed down. Penang’s plant closure would be joined by those in West Jordan, Utah in United States and Bucheon in South Korea. In fact, this will affect around 15 percent of Fairchild’s global workforce of 9,000 employees. Fairchild is also part of the eight companies which set up operations in Penang in the 1970s. The others include Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Hewlett Packard (now Agilent Technologies), Clarion, Intel, Hitachi (now Renesas), Litronix (now Osram Optosemiconductor) and Robert Bosch.
One look at these group of eight companies has revealed that changes continue to happen. Thus, there is no such thing as a secure job. Oh yeah, for some of these retrenched workers, there’s no harm to venture outside of Penang too. Currently, manufacturing jobs continue to be available, not just within Penang but also in Kulim, in Iskandar and in Klang Valley. What should be emphasised should be how we use our earnings to secure a better future. The scouting movement’s motto is ‘Be Prepared.’ This motto says it all. Do we wait or do we take actions in advance? Savings is a virtue everyone must have but investment is the key to a comfortable retirement. Just do not “gamble” it all away.
written on 30 July 2015
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