Intel has offered its Irish employees two weeks' unpaid leave in ongoing cost cutting at the chip manufacturer.

The move is the latest in a series of cost-saving measures at high-tech firms.

All 3,300 full-time workers at Intel's Leixlip plant are being offered two weeks' unpaid leave until November to offset the current slump in demand for microprocessors.

An Intel spokeswoman said it was a voluntary programme introduced to cut discretionary spending.

Other Irish technology firms have introduced mandatory unpaid leave, including Analog Devices in Limerick and Sun Microsystems.

A majority of Analog's 1,400 workforce will be asked to take unpaid leave for one or two weeks in August, while Sun will shut its strategic software development centre in Dublin for a week in July.

Sun recently introduced a recruitment freeze and, in an ironic twist for the pioneering "Internet firm", has asked all its employees not to use the Internet during June. A Sun spokeswoman denied this was to cut costs.