Computer group Dell expects to cut 275 jobs in its Irish and UK operations in a voluntary redundancy programme announced yesterday.
Dell said it expected about 125 of its 1,200 employees in Bray, Co Wicklow and Cherrywood, Co Dublin to sign up for the voluntary severance package and a further 150 jobs to go at its London-based facilities.
This is the second job-cutting drive by Dell in Ireland in a month. In May, Dell announced it was shedding 200 of 4,500 jobs at its Limerick plant.
A spokeswoman for Dell said they could not give any "cast-iron assurances going forward" but felt yesterday's jobs cuts' package was sufficient for the moment.
She said the company was very focused on managing costs aggressively and in the current competitive environment felt the company with the highest productivity and lowest cost structure would continue to prosper.
She said Dell was pleased with the level of response to the package introduced last month in Limerick and hoped to meet the target of 200 job cuts comfortably. She said there were no plans to make the redundancy package compulsory as yet and ". . . we will need to monitor employee reaction to the programme". Some 100,000 people are employed in technology-related jobs in Ireland and there are fears Dell's job cuts may be a forerunner to more of the same.
"There are concerns that the US slowdown is spreading to Europe," Davy Stockbrokers' technology analyst Mr Barry Dixon said, adding that there was no sign of an upturn in the beleaguered technology sector at the moment.
One of the by-products of the US downturn is a series of price wars in the high-tech sector. Dell and Palm, the world's largest makers of desk computers and hand-held computers respectively, are engaged in a bitter price war to undercut their competitors.
"We are very focused on managing costs aggressively so that we can offer best value to our customers and the company with the highest productivity and lowest cost structure will win. We feel we are well positioned in that regard," the Dell spokeswoman said.
The computer manufacturer said in May it would lay off 3,000 to 4,000 of its 39,000 employees, mostly in Dell's home state of Texas. Yesterday's severance package was aimed at employees in non-sales, administrative, support and management positions.
