Private companies expand employee transportation options as TriMet beefs up service and regional government anticipates transit bond measure. 

Two articles about Oregon's largest employer underscore the challenges facing the semiconductor giant.

Oregon Business conducted an informal survey of business executives, journalists and watchdog groups to identify the state’s most secretive companies.

Business secrecy and transparency in an age of disclosure

Intel executives are famously reticent about speaking to the press.  "But I am so frustrated I am willing to speak on the record," said Babak Sabi, director of Intel’s assembly and test technology development group.

Babies are a miracle of nature. They are also a budding market for entrepreneurs in the smart-tech market. And BabyBit, a sensor that attaches to an infant’s clothes, takes child care to its logical, connected-future extreme.

One of the biggest layoffs in Intel's history last month will likely strain the Oregon workforce, but with numerous companies seeking skilled workers, it's possible workers have an opportunity for employment.

From OregonLive:

While Oregon tech jobs are at their healthiest point in a decade, the sudden addition of hundreds of job hunters – with hundreds more to come – will "strain" local hiring capacity, said Dominic Moore, president of Flux Resources, a Lake Oswego recruitment firm.

"I think it's going to be tough," Moore said. "I don't want to sugarcoat anything. People need to expect it's going to be a process."

The state's flourishing technology ecosystem, though, is stocked with fast-growing companies hungry for skilled workers. Some of those companies are leaping at the opportunity to recruit former Intel employees.

Commercial real estate markets nationwide and in Oregon will bottom out this year, and not see a meaningful recovery until 2010, according to a joint report by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Urban Land Institute.