The Shannon-based Intel Research and Development Ireland Ltd. witnessed an increase in profits in 2023, despite a considerable decrease in turnover. The cutback in turnover is largely due to a significant reduction in revenue from the projects it undertook for its parent company, as revealed by its recent financial documents.
The company reported a pretax profit of $52.5 million (€48.5 million) at the close of the fiscal year ended 31st December 2023, a rise from the previous year’s $45.4 million. After paying a corporation tax of $4.3 million, the company clocked a net profit of $48.2 million, an impressive nearly 20% increase from the figure of 2022.
However, the noticeable overall financial advancement is chiefly attributed to a massive increase in finance income, which tripled from $5.1 million to $16.4 million. Despite this, the profits from ordinary activities somewhat fell from $40.3 million to $36.2 million.
There was a slight increase in staff count, rising from 745 to 750. Interestingly, the average salary witnessed a marginal decrease, standing at $126,900. Total wages increased slightly from $79.6 million to $80.9 million, but share-based payments saw a dip of a little more than $3.5 million, landing at $14.3 million.
The company was successful in significantly cutting down on other operational costs, bringing them down from $48.8 million to $23.4 million, attributed to the “dramatically lower utilisation of contingent workers.”
The turnover of the R&D operation slipped from $215.2 million to $154 million. This was primarily due to the decrease in revenue from tasks performed for its parent company, which fell from $197.2 million to $143.3 million. The company managed to secure a research and development tax credit of just above $20 million.
The account details refer to the company’s plan of closing the Shannon site in 2025, hinting at a broader restructuring plan. Significant segments of the operations are planned to be relocated to the company’s Leixlip campus the following year.
The decision isn’t anticipated to impact a great deal of the workforce as a high percentage conduct their tasks remotely or from various places. Unfortunately, the Shannon location is predicted to see a decrease in contractor service positions, with some of the R&D personnel departing this month due to the comprehensive restructuring of the Intel group.
Similar to other divisions within the group, the business has previously issued significant voluntary redundancy and early retirement schemes, which have garnered a large response. Regardless, the Irish headquarters of Intel refuse to disclose the quantity of workers who have accepted these departures or suggest the total decrease within their former employee count of approximately 5,000 in Ireland.
Internationally, Intel has been pursuing a staff reduction of 15 percent, though the exact number can fluctuate greatly among different sectors and teams within the company. The corporation previously reduced its staff numbers by roughly 5 percent in 2023, bringing down the total to 124,800. This included a reduction of about 130 roles in Ireland. Coupling this with spending cuts in other areas, the company estimates a cost saving of near €9.2 billion by 2025.
Recently in Ireland, a substantial investment was made by Intel of €17 billion in its Leixlip location in Co Kildare which includes a state-of-the-art chip manufacturing factory, Fab 34. This investment doubled the manufacturing space of Intel in Ireland and facilitated the employment of 1,600 additional staff.
Even though it appears that there was considerable uptake of redundancy programs with payouts of up to €500,000 plus other benefits, Intel is preparing for approximately 75 compulsory layoffs in the following months.