Intel’s 5,000 Irish staff face job cuts and will be informed about the extent of the redundancies next week.

Intel Ireland is included in a restructuring programme planned by the US computer chip maker which is looking to cut 12,000 jobs globally due to falling sales of personal computers.

The company is one of the biggest multinational employers in Ireland, with 4,500 employees at its base outside Leixlip, Co Kildare, a further 200 at a research and development facility in Shannon, Co Clare, and hundreds more in Cork.

In an email to staff, the company told employees they would be notified “within 72 hours of May 4th” in relation to “both voluntary and involuntary” job losses.

The cuts were described as part of a “separation program”, although the email to staff did not reveal the number of Irish staff likely to be affected.

Short-term professional counselling services were offered to staff in the email, which said the restructuring “will be a difficult process”.

Workers should “be mindful and take care of each other”, it added.

The California-based company is moving away from its traditional business of selling chips used in personal computers to more profitable products, such as processors for data centre computers.

The company has invested more than €9 billion in Ireland since establishing a base in Kildare in 1989, including €3.6 billion over the past five years upgrading its Leixlip operation, the company’s biggest in Europe.