BUSINESS
Dell cuts 150 Limerick jobs
21-05-2002
by
Dell Computer Corporation said that it is cutting 150 jobs in Limerick, just days after the firm announced a significant cost-cutting programme.
The voluntary redundancies, according to Dell, will apply to all administrative departments and organisational levels at Dell's Limerick operations, which employ almost 4,000 of the company's 5,000 Irish workers. Manufacturing staff in Limerick are unaffected by the announcement.
Workers in Dublin and Wicklow are also unaffected and Dell said that departing Limerick workers will be eligible for six weeks' pay per year of service, extended medical and life cover, plus career counselling and outplacement assistance.
In explaining the lost jobs, Dell said that its Irish manufacturing operations had been consolidated into a single Limerick facility in Raheen and this realignment had resulted in the duplication of some administrative and management roles. Already the Limerick site is Dell's most cost-efficient manufacturing operation worldwide.
The company said however that it has plans to invest another USD20 million in upgrading the custom-built site to further drive efficiency.
With its first quarter results, announced last week, Dell said that it had reduced operating expenses to below 10 percent of its revenue, but the firm still wanted to shave another USD1 billion in expenses off its books.
Such commitments to cost reduction have led the company to move operations to low-cost environments such as Malaysia and India. However, the firm said emphatically last week that it had no plans to completely pull out of Ireland, though it did hint that job cuts here were possible.
Update to follow
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