Leixlip, Ireland - Intel has decided to cut 294 jobs at a unit in Ireland because it could not make enough cash out of the product it insisted the Irish make.
The cuts are made in the 200mm production lines for older products manufactured in Ireland. The layoff will not impact any of the 300mm jobs in Intel's Fab 24 in Leixlip, County Kildare, Intel said.
The Irish press had been holding its collective breath for news of redundancies. Workers had been briefed by Intel executives who had been telling them that no one wanted the sort of chips that the Irish plant had been making.
Intel, which employs nearly 5,000 people chiefly in Leixlip, said it had no choice but to trim its Ireland operations because of lower-than-expected demand for its new generation of microprocessors, although it was not these that it appears to have stopped making. To rub it in, Intel had told its Irish workers that the Israeli plants were much more efficient and able to make the same thing for less.
Oddly when Intel came to speak to the press it said that it had invested more than ?6 billion in the Leixlip campus over 20 years, the company said it remains "strongly committed" to its operations in Ireland.
"The staff at the Intel Ireland campus continue to excel and the Intel Ireland management team takes proactive steps on an on-going basis to allow us to offer positive options to Intel Corporation for inward investment opportunities," the company statement said.
Intel had said early this week that it was not going to make a decision on the Irish plant at least for another month, but it looks like it changed its mind after Irish plant workers started moaning to the press that their jobs were history.
The redundancies come on top of a programme that closed in May and sought 200 to 300 redundancies on a voluntary basis from its Irish workforce, Intel added.
Source: TG Daily
