Intel Ireland redundancy plan five-times oversubscribed

Intel's attempt to reduce its global headcount through voluntary redundancies and retirements - what human resources folk picturesquely refer to as 'natural wastage' - is proving very successful in the chip giant's Ireland operation.

Too successful, in fact.

Sources close to the Irish fab tell us that having sought 170 volunteers to quit their posts in return for a handsome pay-off, Intel managers were inundated with applications from staff keen to leave the company. Around 900 workers said they wanted out - more than five times as many as management anticipated.

Never ones to waste an opportunity, senior Intel staffers have allowed nearly half of their lesser colleagues to be made redundant. We hear that 426 staff have now left the company, leading our mole to note that "apparently you can now get a car parking space with no difficulty".

Intel's Irish fab has apparently been running at 20 per cent capacity for some time now - no great surprise, this, given how poor demand has been in the chip sector over the last six months or so - but production is expected to ramp up once more, presumably in anticipation of rising demand for the now so much cheaper Pentium 4. Clearly not enough, however, for the 400-odd staff to be forced to keep their jobs. ®

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