Intel has started consultations with staff on voluntary redundancies at its Leixlip plant this week, confirming the basic terms on offer to those willing take a severance package.
Workers at the computer chip giant, which employs more than 5,000 people in Ireland, are understood not to have been given any firm figure on the number of jobs the company would like to see go here.
The voluntary package is understood to be open to 4,000 of the Irish employees. If the 15 per cent cut being sought by the company’s leadership across the group applies just to those staff, job losses in Ireland could be as high as 600. If it applies to Intel’s entire Irish workforce, the number of redundancies being sought could rise to 750.
The company confirmed to staff that if a sufficient number of voluntary departures is not achieved, the process will involve a compulsory element on the same terms.
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The package outlined to staff this week involves five weeks’ pay for each year of service plus two weeks’ statutory redundancy, with a cap of 104 weeks or €500,000, whichever is lower. Staff with fewer than two years’ service would receive a minimum of five weeks’ pay but not the statutory element.
The company is also offering inducements to more senior staff to take early retirement. It has previously been reported these would apply to workers whose age and years of service combined adds up to 75 or more.
In addition to the job losses, management is seeking to cut other staff benefits.
Car allowances believed to be worth in the region of €15,000 annually to a significant number of middle managers are to be discontinued from next year and free beverages and food provided to workers at the Leixlip site will be cut back.
Intel announced late last month it would be shedding jobs and taking other measures to cut costs by about €10 billion before the end of 2025. The figure was to be on top of previous cuts already announced by the firm, which has seen its market position slip markedly in recent years.
The latest round of cuts was announced alongside revenue and profit figures for the second quarter that fell short of analysts’ expectations.
[ Intel received millions in Irish Government aid this yearOpens in new window ]
Among the measures announced in the United States is the cutting of the company’s four-strong fleet of jets that was used mainly to shuttle staff between its larger facilities in North America.
Intel has only recently invested €17 billion at its Leixlip site in Co Kildare, adding a new cutting-edge chip manufacturing plant – Fab 34 – which doubled the tech giant’s Irish manufacturing space and saw it take on an extra 1,600 staff.
It had been hoped the scale of that investment and importance of the resulting facility might mean the Irish workforce fared better than their colleagues across the group in terms of the job losses required.
Though the number to go in Ireland as part of the 17,000 group-wide cull is still to be confirmed, it does appear it may be proportionally slightly below other locations.
[ How Intel fell from dominant chipmaker to struggling also-ranOpens in new window ]
The Financial Services Union, which represents some workers across the tech sector and has campaigned for greater employee protections, said it and “others have been warning the Government for the last 12 months that job losses were mounting in the technology sector and that the Government should take a more proactive approach to maintaining these well-paid roles”.
“The FSU welcome the announcement that Intel will seek a voluntary-first approach to redundancy and that the severance package we are aware of is greater than was offered by other companies in the sector, but we would urge the company to use all possible solutions to avoid compulsory redundancies.”
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