Opel expects to cut about 1,600 jobs next year and in 2003 as part of its Olympia restructuring programme to improve earnings by at least £1.25 billion sterling.
The German offshoot of General Motors (GM) said about 1,200 are hourly paid workers and the rest are from administration.
The plan to return Opel to profitability from 2003 includes cutting production capacity by 350,000 vehicles annually in Opel and GM plants in Europe.
It had been estimated that this would incur about £625 million in extraordinary costs. Opel chairman Mr Carl-Peter Forster said this sum has been changed in the meantime but declined to give details.
He said 50 per cent of the expected £1.25 billion improvement in earnings will be generated through new products and additional business activities.
Mr Forster said 100,000 of the 350,000 cut in capacity will be made in factories in Bochum, Germany, and at Antwerp, Belgium. He said the further cuts will be in other European plants that are not part of Opel.
Opel Ireland employs 17 people at its offices in Dublin and has a network of 46 dealers through the Republic.
PA