Intel's jobs axe must ring alarm bells

23-07-2009

by Ralph Averbuch

Fresh job cuts at Intel's Irish plant can't be accepted complacently by government.

News that Intel is cutting yet more jobs at its Leixlip fabrication facility in County Kildare comes as a bit of a body blow to an already suffering Irish economy. Two hundred jobs were previously axed at Leixlip last February. While those were voluntary, the additional 294 now going are compulsory. It does beg the question, why is Intel choosing to make these cutbacks at its manufacturing base in Ireland? For years Intel has known that the chips being manufactured here were no longer going to be in demand in the marketplace. Yet, rather than invest in a new plant to produce new generation chips, apparently on 300mm rather than 200mm silicon wafers, it looks as if the decisions being made are all about consolidation. It's true that Intel isn't just hitting Ireland with these cuts -- other fabrication plants around the world have also faced a squeeze -- but there's little doubt that the consequences of these on-going cutbacks will have major repercussions in terms of the loss of highly-skilled jobs, which brought significant wealth to the local economy. In all, Leixlip is losing just under 500 well-paid posts. Let's hope that this will represent the last of such cuts for Intel's Irish operations. For the Government though, it must not be complacent in accepting that this is simply a reflection of the current economic downturn. More so than ever before, government needs to be on top of the issues that led Intel to make the recent cuts so that, if and when the company is ready to make new investments in manufacturing, Ireland remains a top choice. The Irish economy cannot face hemorrhaging production and skills to other parts of the world, as so tragically occurred with Dell's recent local production shutdown and subsequent move to Poland.

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