Kildare operation downsized as company refocuses on engineering
Trade
Image: Shutterstock via Dennis
Intel has notified the Dept of Trade, Enterprise and Employment of plans to lay off 195 employees at its campus in Leixlip, Co Kildare, where it employs 5,000.
The move brings some clarity to the company’s downsizing strategy announced in April when chief executive Lip-Bu Tan issued a statement on the back of underwhelming first quarter results warning that “very hard decisions” would have to be made. A number of those decisions would be made in reorganising the management structure to focus more on product.
It is unclear which units of the Leixlip operation will be most impacted.
“I’ve been surprised to learn that, in recent years, the most important KPI for many managers at Intel has been the size of their teams. Going forward, this will not be the case,” he wrote. “I’m a big believer in the philosophy that the best leaders get the most done with the fewest people. We will embrace this mindset across the company, which will include empowering our top talent to make decisions and take greater ownership of key priorities.”
He continued: “It has been eye-opening for me to see how much time and energy is spent on internal administrative work that does not move our business forward. We need to radically simplify this to maximize the time spent focusing on our customers.”
According to reporting from Bloomberg as much as 20% of the global workforce could be laid off.
Intel closed 2024 with about 109,000 employees, but the exact number within its manufacturing arm, Intel Foundry, which includes both factory engineers and advanced chip researchers, remains unclear.
Intel had enjoyed a dominant position in the CPU market during the 1990s and 2000s, however it missed out on two transformative technologies in smartphones and artificial intelligence – where it lost ground to Qualcomm and Nvidia respectively.
Minister for Social Protection, Dara Calleary said social protection supports are being put in place to assist Intel workers. An official statement from his office read: “My Department will be contacting the company to offer information on all of our income and employment supports that are available to assist these employees over the coming months. We will ensure that those affected employees will receive access to all necessary supports without delay.”
Last May the governement released its semiconductor strategy Silicon Island, an ambitious plan to develop Ireland’s involvement in manufacturing with input from academia, local businesses and multinationals.
“Ireland already has a strong semiconductor base, with over 130 indigenous and multinational companies, 20,000 jobs and €13.5 billion in annual exports,” said Minister for Enterprise, Tourism & Employment Peter Burke at its launch. “But with the right support, I believe we could do far more. By 2040, Ireland could support up to 34,500 new semiconductor roles.”
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