Intel’s almost 5,200 Irish workers and long-term contractors are unlikely to learn for weeks the total number of jobs that will be lost across its operations in this country.

Intel’s Ireland general manager Eamonn Sinnott told employees in an email last Thursday that employees would be notified “within 72 hours of 4 May” if they were set to lose their jobs. It is understood they will not be informed of the total number of jobs targeted as they sit down to individual and group meetings with managers in the coming days.

It was reported by the Sunday Business Post that Intel was preparing to lay off 420 Irish staff as it seeks to cut 11 per cent of its global workforce – 12,000 redundancies.

Declined to comment

The job-cuts plan comes as Intel grapples with falling demand for personal computers and looks to refocus on more profitable business, such as cloud computing, which allows people and businesses store and access data online.

Intel has about 4,500 employees and about 700 long-term contract workers in Ireland, mainly in the chipmaker’s largest site in Europe, outside Leixlip, Co Kildare. Some 250 people work at a research and development facility in Shannon, Co Clare, and a further 350 in Cork.

Business groups

Applying the planned global job cuts on a pro-rata basis, Intel Ireland could expect to shed more than 550 staff and contractors, but, as The Irish Times has previously reported, it is understood the final number will be well short of this. Reports last week suggested the company was looking to thin its middle management and engineering ranks.