Hundreds of Irish jobs at risk as tech company Intel to cut 20pc of global workforce
The move looks likely to affect some of the 5,000 employees at the company's Leixlip site, although the company has not yet clarified the position in relation to Kildare-based staff
Intel is poised to announce plans this week to cut more than 20pc of its staff, aiming to eliminate bureaucracy at the struggling chipmaker, it is understood.
The move looks likely to affect some of the 5,000 employees at the company's Leixlip site, although the company has not yet clarified the position in relation to Kildare-based staff.
Intel first set up in Ireland in 1989 and has invested over €30bn in its Leixlip campus, making it one of the most significant of the many multinationals – many from the US – that have located here.
The move is part of a bid to streamline management and rebuild an engineering-driven culture, according to a source, who asked not to be identified because the plans are private. It would be the first major restructuring under new chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan, who took the helm last month.
The cutbacks follow an effort last year to slash about 15,000 jobs with a round of layoffs announced in August. Intel had 108,900 employees at the end of 2024, down from 124,800 the previous year.
A representative for Intel declined to comment.
Earlier this month, Intel scuppered reports that it is to begin high-volume production of the company's newest and most advanced chips at its Fab 34 facility in Leixlip this year.
Online industry reports had claimed that the Leixlip semiconductor facility was to become the first Intel site outside of the US to shift to high-volume production of certain high-end chips that are used for artificial intelligence (AI) and data centres.
A new facility in Arizona is currently preparing to begin high volume production of Intel's most advanced chip – the 18A.
An Intel spokesperson confirmed to the Irish Independent that Fab 34 in Leixlip has the technical capability to produce 18A chips and did not rule out that it would do so in the future.
Tan is aiming to turn around the iconic chipmaker after years of Intel ceding ground to rivals. The Santa Clara, California-based company lost its technological edge and has struggled to catch up with Nvidia in artificial intelligence computing. That contributed to three straight years of sales declines and mounting red ink.
Tan, a veteran of Cadence Design Systems, has vowed to spin off Intel assets that aren't central to its mission and create more compelling products. Last week, the company agreed to sell a 51pc stake in its programmable chips unit Altera to Silver Lake Management, a step toward that goal.
Intel needs to replace the engineering talent it has lost, improve its balance sheet and better attune manufacturing processes to the needs of potential customers, Tan said last month at the Intel Vision conference.
The company is scheduled to report first-quarter results on Thursday, giving Tan an opportunity to lay out more of his strategy. Though the worst of Intel's revenue declines are now behind it, according to Wall Street estimates, analysts aren't projecting a return to its previous sales levels for years, if ever.
The 65-year-old executive was hired after the ousting last year of CEO Pat Gelsinger, who struggled to execute his own turnaround bid for Intel. He had embarked on a costly effort to expand the company's factory network and sought to turn Intel into a made-to-order chip manufacturer.
But Intel has now delayed much of its expansion effort, including plans for an Ohio facility that was once expected to become the world's largest chip production hub. Intel also had been poised to be the biggest beneficiary of money from the 2022 Chips and Science Act, but that programme is now in flux under President Donald Trump.
A manufacturing partnership with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co, the source of investor speculation in recent months, also seems less likely to happen. TSMC CEO CC Wei said last week that the company would remain focused on its own business.
Along the way, Intel missed out on the most lucrative new field for the chip industry in decades. The company, which long dominated the market for personal computer and data centre processors, was slow to respond to the shift to AI. That upheaval allowed Nvidia to grow from a niche player into the world's most valuable semiconductor company with revenue that now eclipses Intel's sales.
Gelsinger himself admitted that the company had lost its competitive spirit and expressed frustration with the speed at which it reacted to a changing market. He wasn't given the time he'd said he would need to do something about that. Tan, in his first public appearance as CEO last month, said the turnaround would take time and wouldn't be easy.
"It won't happen overnight," he said. "But I know we can get there."
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Irish Times
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