Intel cuts Irish jobs, despite previous reassurances

17 Feb 2009

Intel Ireland has told its Irish workforce that it is to cut between 200 and 300 jobs at its Leixlip plant over the coming months, despite recent assurances by chairman Craig Barrett last month that there was no immediate danger of job cuts in Ireland.

That said, Barrett (pictured) did at the time add that Intel would be taking it “day by day.”

The redundancies are understood to be voluntary, and they form part of a previously announced worldwide cost-saving plan.

One of Ireland’s key employers Intel announced at the end of January that not only did it have no plans to cut jobs here, the giant US chip manufacturer had chosen its Leixlip campus as one of two new European R&D hubs in a move that might lead to future jobs and investment.

Intel, which employs 5,000 people in Ireland, said it would set up the two Open Labs in Leixlip and Munich as part of an initiative to co-ordinate the work of its 800 researchers dispersed throughout Europe.

At the launch of the Intel Labs initiative in Brussels, outgoing group chairman Craig Barrett sounded a relatively optimistic note regarding jobs in Ireland, and said he was very excited about Intel’s Irish research team.

“We recently announced some factory restructuring and it didn’t include Ireland,” he told reporters. “There is no immediate danger of job cuts in Ireland.”

However, he did add at the time that “no one can predict the future. This is one of the worst recessions we have ever seen. So we will take it day by day.”

The company said it continues to be committed to its Irish operation.

By Ann O’Dea

Article courtesy of www.businessandleadership.com

Pictured: Intel chairman, Craig Barrett

Ann O’Dea is the CEO and co-founder of Silicon Republic and the founder of Future Human

editorial@siliconrepublic.com