It’s horns down for a technology company that says it’s leaving the state because of failed lease negotiations.
A semiconductor company is cutting 60 employees and shutting down a factory in Austin after it couldn’t reach an agreement with its landlord, the University of Texas.
New Mexico-based Skorpios Technologies told the Texas Workforce Commission that it will start dismissing staff members starting in April and continue layoffs through the end of May, the Austin Business Journal reported. The company issued a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act letter on Monday.
Skorpios moved into the 150,000-square-foot manufacturing facility at 2706 Montopolis Drive when it bought Novati Technologies in 2017. The company took over the seven-year lease Novati had signed the previous year.
“Despite our best efforts to negotiate a lease extension in good faith over the past two years (and, most concretely, the last ten months), the University of Texas has refused to extend the lease for Skorpios to continue to operate the Austin facility beyond May 31, 2023,” Lisa Albrecht, Skorpios vice president of operations, wrote in the WARN letter. “Unfortunately, Skorpios has no choice but to implement a mass layoff and shut down its operations at the Austin facility and move to a semiconductor facility located in another state.”
The wave of layoffs follows the recent trend of technology companies of all sizes cutting back their workforces. One difference for Skorpios is that its decision is based on real estate, rather than the typical concerns about company finances.
More than 100 people worked for Skorpios at the facility that created computer chip components for medical, defense and aerospace companies.
None of the employees being laid off are members of a union, and there aren’t any “bumping rights,” which would allow senior employees whose jobs are being eliminated to instead take the jobs of lower-level employees.
— Victoria Pruitt
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