Does Dublin really need 500 new tech jobs from Amazon?

Here is how Amazon have explained their decision:

Jeff Caselden, general manager for Amazon Ireland, told RTÉ that the company's decision to continue to invest in the Republic was down to a technically skilled work force and the infrastructure.

"Ireland's got a very creative culture and we're also a member of the European Union so there's a large talent pool we can pull from here.

"Secondly, the infrastructure that we have in the country is very suitable for what we need to do. Connectivity is very important to us.

"The transatlantic cables that connect North America and Europe terminate here in Ireland. There's good access to renewable energy."
 
In fairness, there are high tech jobs outside of Dublin, look at Apple in Cork(40 jobs currently listed on LinkedIn) and opening a data centre in Galway. HP have been in Galway for years, UNUM software came into Carlow a few years ago and employ over 100 people. There is however no getting past the fact that housing in Dublin, it's cost and availability is a disadvantage when it comes to attracting FDI into the Dublin area.
 
Brendan Burgess said:
We clearly can't or shouldn't stop non EU nationals from working here. But should we be encouraging them to a place where there is a housing shortage?

Should we designate Leitrim as a new high tech centre and try to encourage foreign companies to locate there instead of in Dublin?

Brendan
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We've made our bed in the EU so agree, we can't stop people moving here from those countries.
But not all IT jobs down there are going to EU nationals....Russians, Ukranians etc are coming in for the back office jobs that service those countries.

I'd designate Galway for the IT centre. It's got a reputation for the being a 'cool city' so that should help attract. Cheaper rents, etc.
Just need to build the infrastructure and pack in the grants
 
I think some of these tech jobs should be located in the midlands/west/north west where jobs and employment are needed. Why cant the government encourage this?

I think its wrong to assume that people dont want to live in a location other than Dublin. You might find that an awful lot of people would jump at the chance to live in these locations as long as the basics (and a bit more) are there which they of course already are! If the salaries etc were right then the right people would come!
 
Let's say Amazon put 1000 jobs in Roscommon in a facility.
First scenario, one person in the family considers a job with Amazon, but what if their partner is working?
Will they also be able to get a job at the right salary if they work in a different sector?

Next scenario, you sell up in Dublin and move to Roscommon.
Amazon shut the facility in 5 years or announces a pay or promotion freeze.
What chances do you have of getting another job in Roscommon? If you return to Dublin, what price would your old house be?
What chance of getting your kids back into a school in your old area?

Even for the right salary, I wouldn't do it.
It could only work if there's a hub for a lot of different activities and you are moving to the place not for a position.

I don't think it's realistic to think you can create that hub outside of a current main city.
 
The big multi-nationals will never set up in small localities. They will go where the candidates are. I work in a company with around 1100 IT and related staff, ~850 in Dublin, ~250 in Galway. The US execs have stated in the past that they consider opening in Galway a mistake as it's too small a market to support the organisation and maintain a healthy turnover of staff.
We've got a critical mass in Dublin that makes it easy to attract other companies, but we are paying the price for decades of poor planning and short-termed policy.
 
Brendan Burgess said:
But should we be encouraging them to a place where there is a housing shortage?
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I'm still trying to work out if this is a serious question. As it stands, the IDA's job is to encourage inward investment to the country. There are three basic choices the IDA have: (1) come to Ireland, a great place for your business, (2) come to Ireland, but only to certain parts where we want you to locate or (3) we'd love you to come, but we're full right now. I assume you're arguing for (2) rather than (3)? As far as I know (it's been a few years now since I dealt with them), there are in fact greater incentives offered for those locating in disadvantaged areas. However, Amazon don't come here for whatever the IDA offers: they come (as they say themselves) because of the infrastructure, including the talent pool. Yes, for sure a lot of that talent pool is from the rest of the EU and wider afield, but so what?

Brendan Burgess said:
Should we designate Leitrim as a new high tech centre and try to encourage foreign companies to locate there instead of in Dublin?

Brendan
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You could try (and it has been tried), but it would be a complete waste of resources. There is now a well-established hub of tech companies located in Dublin: something many other EU countries can only dream of. Even if the IDA offered no incentives (did they?), Amazon would probably come here as opposed to elsewhere in the EU. Tech companies tend to cluster, whether it's Silicon Valley (not Silicone by the way, which is something completely different), Israel, Bangalore or Dublin. For global companies, you need a global scale tech centre and we're only likely to get one of those. Due to a lot of forsight and hard work by many over the years, we have one of those in Dublin: I think you'd be mad to do anything to dilute it. Unfortunately, forsight and planning by the IDA (and others) is not something we're very good at: hence the housing situation. Rural locations should play to their strengths: tourism and food production spring to mind.

So, the short answer is no, we shouldn't try an discourage this kind of inwards investment; rather we should get better at planning and delivering the supports needed to maintain it.
 
jim said:
I think some of these tech jobs should be located in the midlands/west/north west where jobs and employment are needed. Why cant the government encourage this?

I think its wrong to assume that people dont want to live in a location other than Dublin. You might find that an awful lot of people would jump at the chance to live in these locations as long as the basics (and a bit more) are there which they of course already are! If the salaries etc were right then the right people would come!
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As others have said, it has been tried and it just hasn't worked out. The likes of UNUM are struggling to get quality staff to locate to Carlow but on the flip side part of the reason for this is the poor salary being offered. Companies are prepared to pay competitive salaries for staff in Dublin but are not prepared to do likewise if located rurally - in fact the difference in salaries offered is massive.
On the one hand it's quite ironic really that the type of jobs which are ideally suited to being located just about anywhere with good broadband connectivity (and despite the view that our broadband network is poor, there are plenty of large rural towns with an adequate broadband network) are the very jobs which tend to be clustered together in these hubs.
 
jim said:
I think its wrong to assume that people dont want to live in a location other than Dublin. You might find that an awful lot of people would jump at the chance to live in these locations as long as the basics (and a bit more) are there which they of course already are! If the salaries etc were right then the right people would come!
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Decentralisation, I remember it well. All those civil servants fighting to relocate ... (ahem)
 
The global economy isn't going to wait for us to build a few thousand apartments, so we'll just have to play catch-up for a few years. The good news: what better incentive for private capital to build more/denser/better housing than a young, growing, well-paid work force in the neighborhood?

Yes, low earners will be priced out of the most desirable accommodation by people with deeper pockets. It has ever been thus. Universal poverty is not the solution.
 
I don't believe what I am reading from some intelligent people in this thread. I am reminded of those media broadcasters yearning for fame but once it is attained they want the privacy of a religious monk. It is only a few short years since two dozen new jobs in a fast food outlet made front page news.

Any kind of new job is good. I don't care if the work is in a call-centre, financial institution, civil service and I don't care if it is Miguel from Madrid or Tommy from Tallaght gets the job. The main thing is that somebody new is earning, spending and contributing to the public good. Those of us old enough to remember the real recessions of the 1980's also remember trawling through newspapers looking for non existent job vacancy ads. Tradesmen were following JCBs in the hope of sourcing work. Now we have people whinging whether we should accept 500 new jobs in Dublin.

I'll tell you one thing as a father of two kids who emigrated some years ago; give us those 500 jobs in Cork. We'll take them with outstretched arms.
 
Leper said:
I'll tell you one thing as a father of two kids who emigrated some years ago; give us those 500 jobs in Cork. We'll take them with outstretched arms.
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Won't be much use to ye in Cork if Russian, Greek or Ukranian are requisites for the job for example
 
Delboy said:
Of course...but how many people in Ireland can?
So of no use to Lepers kids in that scenario
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This would be a very narrow view to take without taking account of the fact that new jobs (whoever takes them up) mean extra spending power in the area where they are created. This extra spending begets further spin off jobs as local business expand to meet the additional demand. In addition the income tax/VAT paid by the new workers (of whatever origin) benefits the Central Exchequer which allows additional Public sector expenditure and/or a reduction in Government borrowings. The core point is that we all benefit from the funds brought in through FDI and should not begrudge the fact that some of the jobs are taken up by non-nationals! The "Little Britain" mentality currently being waged by many across the water is the main focus of the Brexit proponents and is reflective if the inability to see immigrants as anything other than a negative input to a country.
 
Delboy said:
Won't be much use to ye in Cork if Russian, Greek or Ukranian are requisites for the job for example
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OMG! It doesn't matter: it's still a positive addition to the economy!

Even if 100% of the positions were filled with inward migrants, those people need to live: eat, drive cars, buy furniture, work in office buildings (which need building), whatever. Take a walk around the Grand Canal basin area some day and look around you. Compare and contrast with the wasteland it was just over a decade ago. As someone else has pointed out, is it a serious question to ask whther this is a good or bad thing? Why on earth do you think the economy has recovered to the extent it has given the position we were in? It certainly wasn't anything that happened in the local economy: that is only now coming to the fore.

And before someone mentions dependency, where do you think the dozens of new Irish tech companies have come from? Do you think they'd exist to anything like the same extent if the tech cluster didn't exist?

I still can't quite believe that people are questioning one of the few examples we have of long-term forward planning - the creation of a tech cluster - and suggesting modifying it to counter the abysmal absence of planning in the housing sector.
 
Brendan Burgess said:
Amazon will be employing 500 IT people, mainly in Dublin.

... many of these employees will come from abroad. Where will they live? No problem there, as their high salaries will allow them to push up the rents in Dublin.

So how do ordinary citizens benefit? There will be more jobs providing services to Amazon. But where will these people live?

Would 500 unskilled jobs in Ballymun be more welcome?
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I think it is outrageous that people who grew up in a first world country, with all the opportunities that implies, including a first world education and health system who reach adulthood with no skills, should complain that foreigners are earning too much and pushing up housing costs.


At least the 500 new people will need someone to bring them coffee, and what else are the unskilled of Ballymun good for ?
 
cremeegg said:
I think it is outrageous that people who grew up in a first world country, with all the opportunities that implies, including a first world education and health system who reach adulthood with no skills, should complain that foreigners are earning too much and pushing up housing costs.
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Well said!
 
There is a legitimate concern that the concentration of highly paid jobs in one industry in one area can cause a property bubble. San Francisco has a similar problem. It also has an impact on small local firms in tech who can't compete on the wage front. I know someone working in an indigenous long established IT company employing around 100 people. Every month he has staff coming into him saying they have an offer elsewhere €15k/€25k more then what they are on. He can't afford those salaries and remain competitive but he needs their skillset to also remain competitive so he is in a Catch-22

What will be interesting is what happens when the bubble bursts as all bubbles eventually do.

Having said all of that, none of it is a reason to turn away 500 skilled positions. If they come from overseas, so what? After all, plenty of Irish people went overseas in the past (and still are) for work and no one here says it's dreadful that we are going to other countries and "taking their jobs." 500 jobs like this will generate €10-€20m pa in income tax for the state alone, + VAT and other taxes from their spending. It will indirectly fund other jobs through spending as well. It would be great to see those roles in Leitrim but the reality is, it's not going to happen regardless of what grants the Govt throws at it. Instead, the focus in areas like that should be on the SME sector to encourage local entrepreneurs instead of waiting on some foreigner to "build a factory" so the politicians can claim credit for
 
newtothis said:
OMG! It doesn't matter: it's still a positive addition to the economy!

Even if 100% of the positions were filled with inward migrants, those people need to live: eat, drive cars, buy furniture, work in office buildings (which need building), whatever.
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Of course it's a positive addition...to the general economy. And it'd be even more positive in somewhere like Galway.
But to a lot of people it is not...it's just more pressure on housing costs/availability in an already crazy market.

That might not make sense to a lot of middle aged folk on here who own their own houses and are mid way through their careers in steady jobs
 
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