Up to 60,000 workers in the Philippines’ electronics sector could lose their jobs this year as a result of the worldwide financial crisis, the Labor Department said.

Labor Secretary Marianito Roque made the statement following the report that some 1,800 electronics workers and an undisclosed number of executives are losing their jobs with the impending closure of Intel Corp’s assembly test facility in Cavite province south of Manila.

This latest cutbacks emphasize the poor condition of the electronics industry and could be the start of a wave of job losses in the sector.

“We hope that the [Intel plant closure] would be the last. The semiconductor industry is already getting hit. We have seen this as early as three months ago. That’s why we have moved in and set up our daily monitoring center. We said the electronics industry has about 480,000 workers, a small percentage of which could be affected, maybe about 60, 000,” Roque said in an ABS-CBN interview.

Besides the Philippines, the world’s largest computer chip maker is also closing similar facilities in Malaysia and will halt production at plants in Santa Clara, California and Hillsboro, Oregon.