US tech giant Intel has announced that it is cutting its 100,000 strong workforce worldwide by 12,000.
A spokesperson for Intel in Ireland said it was too early to say whether or not its operations in Ireland would be affected by the planned global job cuts.
The restructuring will cut about 11% of the workforce by mid-2017.
The move aims to "accelerate evolution from a PC company to one that powers the cloud and billions of smart, connected computing devices," Intel said in a statement.
A spokesperson for Intel in Ireland last night said no site specific information is available yet and it would be another 60 days before that information would be known.
The company currently employs around 5,500 people in Ireland.
4,500 of those are at its manufacturing campus in Leixlip and the remainder are spread across its security business in Cork and its research and development labs in Shannon.
Two years ago the company revealed it was in the process of spending $5bn (over €4bn) on upgrading the Leixlip manufacturing operation.
That work is now complete and the plant is producing 14 nanometer chip technology. In that context any cutbacks in Leixlip would be seen as a surprise.
