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Irish Mirror
Irish Mirror
National
Michelle Devane

Recruitment for 1,600 new jobs at Intel plant in Leixlip, Co Kildare due to get underway

Recruitment is due to get under way in the coming months for 1,600 new jobs being created by Intel at its Leixlip plant in Co Kildare.

The chipmaker said the the recruitment will happen in stages over the coming years as the company completes construction of its new manufacturing facility.

The tech giant has invested 7 billion dollars (5.9 billion euro) at the north Kildare campus over the past three years.

Intel Ireland vice-president of manufacturing and operations and general manager Eamonn Sinnott said: "We are accelerating investment in Europe and supporting the EU's ambition of having 20% of the world's cutting-edge chips manufactured locally."

Intel employs more than 10,000 people across Europe, about 5,000 in Ireland.

About 4,500 work in Leixlip, while another 500 are in Cork and Shannon.

Mr Sinnott added: "Since 1989, we have invested 15 billion dollars in current manufacturing capacity in Europe, ensuring that Intel is one of the largest and most advanced semiconductor manufacturing operations in the region, but we're not stopping there.

"In an effort to more than double Intel's available manufacturing space in Ireland and Europe, we have invested an additional 7 billion dollars from 2019 to 2021 in an ongoing expansion.

"This investment is designed to bring Intel's latest generation 7nm process technology to the region and expand our manufacturing operations.

"It will also drive economic growth in the region, creating 1,600 permanent hi-tech jobs once complete and over 5,000 construction jobs.

"Furthermore, there will be additional opportunity for investment in the region."

The company plans to announce another phase of expansion to support our a foundry business in the US, Europe and other global locations within a year.

The construction of the company's new fabrication plant is about half-way through. It is expected to be another two to three years before it is completed and all 1,600 jobs are filled.

It is not yet known what the total investment in the Leixlip site will be at that stage.

Communications manager Sarah Sexton told Virgin Media News the new positions will be largely technical roles.

"They'll be quite similar to the jobs we have here today which are largely technical roles, quite a few engineering type of roles right across the spectrum of engineering," she said.

"Things like manufacturing technicians and support roles in things like facilities."

The Taoiseach welcomed the "ambitious expansion" of Intel's Irish operations.

Micheal Martin said: "Intel has made a major contribution to Ireland since 1989 - and these hi-tech roles will play an important role as we build the green and digital economy of the future."

Tanaiste Leo Varadkar described the jobs announcement as "another huge vote of confidence in Ireland's future".

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