Jive Software will lay off 18 Portland employees

Jive's downtown Portland office.
Jive's downtown Portland office.(Mike Rogoway/The Oregonian)

Jive Software notified Oregon officials this week that it plans to lay off 18 Portland employees at the end of December. 

The company didn't say why it's cutting the jobs or how many remain in its downtown office. Jive didn't immediately respond to a request for details. 

Jive's technology uses social media tools to encourage collaboration within businesses and communication with customers. Once Portland's signature technology company, Jive led a shift in Oregon tech away from computer hardware toward software.

Though it moved its headquarters to California in 2010, its largest office remained in Portland. It employed 200 or more there in recent years.

In June, Jive completed its $462 million sale to a little-known Texas company called Aurea. Aurea then announced plans to break Jive into two pieces, selling the portion of the business focused on external communication to a San Francisco company called Lithium. 

Current and former employees say Jive has had a very high attrition rate since announcing its sale in May. This is the first time, though, it has disclosed layoffs. Jive plans to cut marketing, design and engineering jobs, according to its filing with the state.

This has been a tough year for Oregon technology, with job growth stagnating and layoffs at SureID, Microsoft and Intel, among others.

-- Mike Rogoway; twitter: @rogoway; 503-294-7699