Chipzilla’s lame duck chairman has insisted that Intel will not be cutting jobs at its Irish unit after the firm announced a shake-up of its European R&D unit.

Just last week, Craig Barrett announced his retirement from the company, 48 hours after Intel revealed that it would close five plants in a restructuring move that would affect between 5,000 and 6,000 employees worldwide.

"There is no immediate danger of job cuts in Ireland but nobody can predict the future,” Barrett, who retires in May, reportedly told RTE News yesterday. “This is one of the worst recessions we have ever seen, so we will take it day by day."

Meanwhile, the company said today that it planned to stitch its 800 European-based research and development staff together under one organisation it has dubbed Intel Labs Europe.

Two “Open Labs” will be set up in Leixlip and Munich as part of a new initiative to coordinate R&D in Europe.

However, the firm, which employs some 5,000 staff in Ireland, was not immediately available to comment on the prospects of job losses at Intel’s Leixlip unit following consolidation of its R&D facilities. ®

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