Procter & Gamble, the world's biggest consumer group, said yesterday it would cut 15,000 jobs at a cost of $1.9 billion over five years, in an effort to restore sales growth and to revive a flagging culture of innovation.

The implications were not immediately clear for the company's Irish operations. But the firm said last month that up to 200 new jobs would be created at its Nenagh, Co Tipperary plant as a result of the decision to close its operation in Wakefield, England. The move followed a feasibility study involving both plans. P&G is the largest employer in Nenagh with a workforce close to 400.

Chief executive, Mr Durk Jager admitted yesterday that P&G had not invented a new category of products since 1982. It would now aim to halve the time it took to bring new products to market, he said.

Mr Jager said the group's focus since the 1980s on rolling existing products such as Pampers nappies and Crest toothpaste into emerging markets had come at the expense of innovation.

P&G has missed its sales targets for all of the past six quarters and said yesterday that it was now a couple of years behind target on its 1995 goal of doubling sales to $70 billion by 2006.

Mr Jager said P&G would now depend less on developing markets for growth. Instead, product launches would be focused on the more profitable US and Europe.

P&G announced its plan to cut 13 per cent of the workforce as part of its Organisation 2005 restructuring plan, unveiled last September.