Tektronix headquarters, near Beaverton. Tektronix buyouts will trim nearly 200 jobs as sales slump. Parent company Fortive said Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2019, it will split into two publicly traded companies. Tektronix will remain with Fortive, which will now concentrate on industrial technologies. A second company, yet to be named, will focus on transportation.(Mike Rogoway/The Oregonian)

Tektronix is reducing its workforce by nearly 200 jobs through employee buyouts amid falling sales. And Tek’s parent company, Fortive Corp., said Wednesday it will break in two to give different parts of the business “increased strategic focus” after a steep fall in Fortive’s share price.

“We have instated a voluntary separation program (VSP) for all full-time U.S. employees as we take steps to align our organization to current business performance and deliver profitable growth,” Tektronix said in a written statement.

The Washington County company declined to specify how many people are taking buyouts, but sources with direct knowledge of Tek’s plans said the total is close to 200. Tek offered the buyouts to employees in July; the first take effect Friday and the total may rise modestly higher in the future, according to the sources.

Tektronix makes oscilloscopes and similar instruments that engineers use to test and evaluate electronic devices. Godfather to Oregon’s tech sector, Tek is now a subsidiary of Fortive, a conglomerate based in Everett, Washington.

Fortive said Wednesday it will split into two publicly traded companies. Tek will remain with Fortive, which will now concentrate on industrial technologies. A second company, yet to be named, will focus on transportation — retail and commercial fueling, trucking fleets and automotive services.

Fortive is itself the product of a prior split, when former Tektronix owner Danaher Corp. divided its business in 2016. Danaher shares are up nearly 73% since the breakup; Fortive shares are up just 32% during that time.

It’s been a tough year for Fortive, which cut its outlook for the year in July and has lost a fifth of its value since April after. Shares fell 3.3% Wednesday to $66.70 on news of the breakup.

Fortive is extremely secretive about its business units — it doesn’t disclose Tek’s financial results and won’t even say how many employees work at its 250-acre campus near Beaverton.

When Fortive reported quarterly revenues in July, though, CEO Jim Lico told investment analysts that “Tektronix registered a mid-single digit decrease in core revenue.”

Lico, who once served as Tek’s president, blamed economic weakness in Europe and trade sanctions that restricted sales to Chinese wireless company Huawei. He warned investors those headwinds are likely to persist in coming quarters.

Tektronix is also suffering amid a steep decline in the semiconductor industry, one of Tek’s key markets. Analytics firm IHS Markit reported a “debacle” in the chip sector Wednesday, reporting a 13.9% drop in semiconductor sales during the first six months of the year. IHS said that’s the industry’s steepest fall in a decade.

Tektronix is a tiny fraction of the size it was in the 1970s and ’80s, when it employed well over 10,000 and was among Oregon’s major economic engines. But it’s still one of the state’s best-known businesses and appears to be among its largest tech employers.