Intel staff in Ireland offered unpaid leave as cost-cutting commences:
The chipmaker recently confirmed it is considering job cuts, and has now reportedly offered up to 2,000 Irish workers three months of unpaid leave.
Intel has offered voluntary unpaid leave to a significant portion of its Irish staff in an effort to reduce costs.
Up to 2,000 Irish workers have been offered three months of unpaid leave as part of a "voluntary time off" option, the Business Post reports.
It is understood this offer is being made to many workers in Intel's manufacturing business. The company employs roughly 5,000 people in Ireland, with a large number based at the company's expanding Leixlip campus in Kildare.
An Intel spokesperson told the Business Post that this voluntary leave programme gives Intel an opportunity to "reduce short-term costs" while offering staff "attractive time-off options".
[...] Lawsuits are also taking their toll on Intel, as the chip giant was recently ordered to pay nearly $950m in a patent infringement case.
In an earnings call at the end of October, CEO Pat Gelsinger said Intel was "aggressively addressing costs and driving efficiencies across the business" to position itself for the future.
These "aggressive" moves include $3bn in cost reductions in 2023, growing to up to $10bn in annualised cost reductions and efficiency gains by the end of 2025.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by canopic jug on Tuesday December 06, @12:03PM (1 child)
It's a layoff, they're just trying really hard not to call it that.
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(Score: 2) by Revek on Tuesday December 06, @02:23PM
Can we get a "true dat" mod?
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(Score: 3, Insightful) by looorg on Tuesday December 06, @03:35PM (1 child)
How many accepted that offer? They presented the offer to 2000 people, nothing about how many accepted it as far as I can tell. Also as noted by the dept line -- what happens to the people that get the offer and say no? Is this like getting an offer from Don Corleone? Accept or pay the consequences. Unpaid leave. Not even vacations are unpaid. Can you apply for unemployment benefits during these months? Or are you just supposed to live of your savings? Are these people in high paying jobs? Technically I guess you are still employed by IBM, you are just not doing any work or collecting any pay. Also what happens when the three months are up, is there any guarantee that you just don't get another three month offer or gets sacked then?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Tork on Tuesday December 06, @08:13PM
Perhaps I'm comically optimistic, but I wonder if Intel is just taking the temperature of their workers and using that info to work out just how big a cut they need to make. If they got a big response they may not need to cut as much.
But as I said before I'm just speculating and have nothing particularly factual to offer.
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(Score: 2) by srobert on Wednesday December 07, @04:13PM
The place I work offered unpaid leave years ago to get through tough times. I couldn't afford to take unpaid leave at the time. Some did, and I guess they felt they were getting some time off and helping out the company at the same time. A few years later there was a massive layoff. I was fortunate in not being selected. I noticed that people who had volunteered to take unpaid leave were much more likely to be selected for the layoffs. And, for positions without union representation, seniority didn't seem to matter, even though the employee handbook states that it would. There was a lawsuit over it, and a few of the former employees managed to get an award from the court. But, with all the appeals, most couldn't afford to keep fighting it in court and dropped out of the suit before it was settled.