Intel may seek up to 100 redundancies and unpaid leave scheme

Government figures expect up to 100 redundancies could take place at Intel’s site in Leixlip in Co Kildare in the coming months.

Senior Coalition sources said a number of redundancies could come in the new year — with a much smaller tranche than 100 initially expected — but that more may follow.

While there has been no formal notification of job losses, it is understood that there has been an informal indication that redundancies may take place in January or February.

The job losses would be separate to a voluntary, unpaid scheme to allow workers in Intel to take up to three months off work before returning to their position, which was confirmed on Friday by the company.

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[ Intel staff told to consider unpaid leave amid cost-cutting ]

[ Cantillon: Intel unpaid leave offer unusual in private sector ]

Two Government sources briefed on developments confirmed that they had been informally told to expect up to 100 redundancies, with the company scaling back before rehiring and expanding again in years to come.

They expressed confidence that any redundancies would be cyclical in nature and that the commitment by the company to its operations in Kildare was steadfast.

A spokeswoman for Intel had no comment when contacted about potential redundancies by The Irish Times.

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Manufacturing staff at the firm’s Kildare facility have been told to consider taking unpaid leave as the chip-making company seeks to cut back dramatically on costs.

About 4,500 of its Irish workforce are based at its Leixlip plant although it remains unclear how many will be required to take the temporary work breaks.

The move follows a slowdown in demand for the chip giant’s products. PC sales tumbled 15 per cent in the third quarter of this year, with HP, Dell and Lenovo, all of which use Intel’s processors, suffering steep declines.

Catherine Murphy, the Social Democrats co-leader and Kildare North TD, said she feared that the company may be investing money in Ireland but implementing cutbacks “at the same time”.

“I had been expecting some redundancies but my understanding was that it would be in areas like HR [human resources], not on the manufacturing side of things,” she said. She said the voluntary time off scheme was evidence that Intel wanted to retain the “talented workforce” it has in the State.

“They don’t want to be sacking people then hiring again and training people. We are used to this with Intel to a certain extent. They have restructured before. But with Intel, all announcements are big and it always creates an alarm when there is any sort of adjustment being made there. If they don’t get sufficient take-up, I don’t think we can rule out redundancies,” she said. “More widely though, the scale of building out there demonstrates the company’s long-term commitment here. When they say they are here for the long term, I would believe them.”

Greg Ennis, Siptu manufacturing divisional organiser, said the treatment of workers was “despicable” and is “further evidence that workers such as those in Intel should join a trade union. Recent treatment of workers in other hugely profitable high-tech global organisations has shown that workers can be treated abysmally and the only proven defence to such treatment is by way of collectivism and mobilisation.”

In a statement on Thursday, Intel said the push for voluntary time off programmes would enable it to reduce short-term costs and “offer employees attractive time off options. During our recent earnings call, we announced significant steps to reduce costs and improve efficiencies, while mindfully protecting the investments needed to accelerate our transformation and position us for long-term growth.”

The company added: “Retaining our manufacturing talent is a key element of positioning Intel for long-term growth.”