Ireland suffered its biggest economic blow in years on Thursday when Dell, the American computer group, said that it was slashing its workforce that is based in Limerick and shifting its European manufacturing operations to Poland.

Dell, which is Ireland's second largest corporate employer and its biggest exporter, said that it was cutting 1,900 jobs in Limerick.

Economists calculate that each Dell job in the country underpins another four to five jobs. It has been calculated that Dell contributed about 5 per cent to Ireland's GDP in recent years.

Managers at the Limerick plant called in all workers to break the news at 9am on Thursday. They were told that of the company's 4,300 Irish employees 1,900 — overwhelmingly assembly-line workers — would lose their jobs between April 2009 and January 2010.

By then, the company said, it plans to have transferred the entire Irish production of laptops and desktop computers to a new plant in Lodz, Poland's third-largest city — where labour costs are at least two-thirds of Dell's rates in Ireland — and to subcontractors, chiefly in Asia.

Sean Corkery, vice-president of operations, who broke the news to large groups of employees, said: “This is a difficult decision but the right one for Dell to become even more competitive and deliver greater value to customers.”

John Gilligan, the mayor of Limerick, called yesterday “the blackest day” in the city's history and accused Dell of lacking corporate responsibility by concealing its decision for as long as three years. He added: “It is not a question of 2,000 people being out of work ...15,000 people could be impacted.” Mr Gilligan said that he expected comparable state funding to the €185 million (£167 million) that it made available to the pork industry in December after the tainted pig meat scare.

Dell is the dominant employer in Limerick where unemployment is higher than a soaring national rate, nearing 8 per cent.

“The anger inside there is unbelievable,” said Mike Killeen, 36, outside the Dell assembly line where he has worked for seven years. He said Mr Corkery “was savaged inside — and rightly so”.

Mr Killeen added: “This is not about a company that is in trouble. This is about greed, corporate greed. They're going to Poland because apparently they can make an extra 3 per cent.”

Dell said the remaining 1,100 Irish workers in Limerick would continue to co-ordinate manufacturing operations throughout Europe, and research and develop new products. Another 1,300 employees at Dell's marketing and sales centre for Europe in Dublin, were not directly affected by yesterday's cuts. Mr Corkery claimed on RTÉ Radio that the decision to end production in Limerick was “only taken earlier this week”.

Mary Coughlan, the Deputy Prime Minister, said the Government hoped that Dell would choose Ireland for future investment, reflecting the nation's ambition to become a European hub for research and development. Brian Cowen, the Taoiseach, said in a statement the news was a major blow.

He added: “The Government will continue to work with Dell to identify further development opportunities, which may arise as the company continues to develop the new business model, which is responding to the global business environment.”

Neelie Kroes, the European Commission's competition commissioner, said there were doubts whether the €l50 million incentive provided by the Polish Government to Dell passed strict rules on state aid. “We need to investigate all the effects of this aid to verify that it contributes to regional development,” Mrs Kroes said.

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