# Job Loss in Ireland Today



## Superman (9 Mar 2007)

Anyone know why there is such a spate of Job losses in the last couple of weeks?  
Is just that the media are turning their attention to it?


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## sunrock (9 Mar 2007)

Apparently employers have noticed that labour costs and also most other costs are cheaper elsewhere.
Some may relocate their factories to asia, if the e.u. internal market is not too important to them.
For those employers that wish to remain in the e.u..well they have seen east european workers in ireland  and so if the factories are relocated to poland etc,the costs of labour etc are much cheaper.No doubt the governments of these countries are doing an "ida" on these employers with low taxes etc
Did you think these employers set up in ireland because we were special and they loved our culture.
Of course irish employees are free to work in poland for the polish rate....i doubt if many will be going.
The same thing happened in the 80s when many factories closed down when their tax free holidays and other perks expired,much to the puzzlement of our politicians.


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## ClubMan (9 Mar 2007)

Don't forget that there is also some [broken link removed] that doesn't always get the same level of coverage.


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## Superman (9 Mar 2007)

I understand the reasons for relocation to Eastern Europe etc. 
What I don't understand is this: what is so special about the last couple of weeks that everyone has decided that it would be a good time to announce job losses?

Following on from Clubman's link, is it just a case that the media has decided to highlight the problem now for some (or no) particular reason?
Or are there particular factors that have caused these to happen now?
Higher ESB costs kicking in, something to do with the nature of Corporate announcements and their annual accounts etc.

Basically it appears that rather than a drip, drip, drip loss of jobs, there has been a sudden deluge of job loss, without recent precedent.  Why is this?


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## thewatcher (9 Mar 2007)

The government took the eye off the ball post the 2001 liquidity splurge and let costs (of everything) get way out of hand, now the chickens are coming home to roost.
What's worst is these are high end jobs that are going and being replaced by burger flippers,pizza slicers and retail assistants.I saw figures the other day where the bottom 40% of workers are not even paying tax.
When stamp duty goes i'd love to know,where the money is going to come from !.


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## Persius (9 Mar 2007)

Probably just a coincedence that quite a few announcements are being made in such short succession. I reckon most companies have internally decided they are going to relocate or downsize a good 6 months or more before the decision is finally announced. So really, the question is "what's been happening over the past year to result in this spate of job loss announcements?"


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## z107 (9 Mar 2007)

> Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Micheál Martin TD today (Thursday 22nd February 2007) announced that VMware, the global leader in software for industry-standard virtualized desktops and servers, is to expand its EMEA Technical Support Centre in Ballincollig, Cork.  VMware will extend the range of activities at the centre and create an additional 369 new positions,* with the support of IDA Ireland.*


(From one of the links above)

This isn't really solving anything. As soon as the 'support for IDA Ireland' runs out, this foreign company will also start looking around at other countries for the best deal.

I remember doing a contract for Kao a few years ago. They moved out probably when their funding/tax breaks expired and Zomax moved in.
http://www.breakingnews.ie/business/?jp=MHAUKFEYKFKF
I wonder who's go it will be next?

My best guesses for the answer to the question 'why now?' - Maybe it's because the financial year end is April for a lot of companies - or maybe it's because an election is coming up and the press love a good story.


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## ontour (9 Mar 2007)

as above, there are many companies, especially US that would be completing their financial year 2008 planning.  The budgets get assigned to other countries and the wind down begins here.


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## joe sod (10 Mar 2007)

thewatcher said:


> The government took the eye off the ball post the 2001 liquidity splurge and let costs (of everything) get way out of hand, now the chickens are coming home to roost.
> What's worst is these are high end jobs that are going and being replaced by burger flippers,pizza slicers and retail assistants.I saw figures the other day where the bottom 40% of workers are not even paying tax.
> When stamp duty goes i'd love to know,where the money is going to come from !.


 
I agree with this, I remember in the 1997/2002 government bertie ahern was very much seen photagraghed opening high tech multinationals in ireland or meeting with them. What employers and especially high tech multinationals wanted was at the top of the government agenda. Now Bertie Ahern has distanced himself from this even if a high tech company opens in ireland now it is michael martin not bertie ahern who is there. Of course now the bad news out weighs the good news so michael martin again finds himself in a difficult portfolio. It is the public services where bertie ahern likes to be photographed now. It is the the huge pay rises and working conditions in the public services that are making ireland uncompetitive because now workers in the private sector are now trying to benchmark themselves with those in the public sector. But in the ultra competitive globalised world the private sector simply moves to greener pastures. As well as the multinationals I think many irish companies will move significant operations abroad.


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## ontour (11 Mar 2007)

Of course now the bad news out weighs the good news 

Is there evidence that there are currently net job losses, it was my understanding that job creation was still outstripping losses?

Or is this somethig to do with media's propensity to promote negative news more often than good news, pain seems to sell.


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## thewatcher (11 Mar 2007)

ontour said:


> Is there evidence that there are currently net job losses, it was my understanding that job creation was still outstripping losses?.



Going down that road is a fools game,even the most optimistic "economic experts" are saying the jobs we are producing now are not the same quality as what were losing.Chose to stick your head in the sand and believe what your told but the truth is out there.The services sector can only sustain this country while we keep borrowing !.As for the building game i won't even go there.


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## ontour (11 Mar 2007)

It doesn't make sense that they are low quality jobs that are being created, those low quality jobs are finding low cost economies.  The quality of the Motorola jobs is hugely overhyped.  They were good jobs but the market is moving a lot of software production jobs to China, India and parts of eastern Europe.  The driver for the closer is primarily poor company performance.

I have no doubt that we have fewer of the competitive advantages for being the automatic choice as a corporate european base than we had 7- 10  years ago but there still is a sales pitch.  A number of It firms recently announced large investments which is a positive sign.

What we will have to accept is that the aspect of the "quality" of jobs that is reducing is job security.  More and more jobs and companies will come and go with greater ease and frequency


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## sunrock (11 Mar 2007)

Blaming the media for focusing in on job losses is ridiculisis.This is a big important story, election or no election...i`m sure the gov are/will do all they can to postpone/mitigate this bad news till after the election.
Can`t blame the companies involved wanting to reduce costs.....they came here because of our low taxes and greater profits here....now they are moving to a more profitable country...i guess it`s called globalisation.
This whole ida policy must be reviewed.
Personally i think they should help irish companies more.


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## ClubMan (11 Mar 2007)

sunrock said:


> This whole ida policy must be reviewed.
> Personally i think they should help irish companies more.


_IDA _is primarily focused on foreign direct inward investment. _Enterprise Ireland _is primarily focused on helping indigenous _Irish _companies.


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## ontour (11 Mar 2007)

Sunrock, 

I am not blaming the media for anything, theyt are not the cause of the job losses however I regularily hear of companies that are bringing more jobs to Ireland than will unfortunately be lost in Motorola, however these gains would never make front page.

I think that there is a more interesting analysis to be carried out on the clustering of job losses, especially when they are unrelated industries.  Such an analysis might justify a journalism degree.


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## bearishbull (11 Mar 2007)

ontour said:


> It doesn't make sense that they are low quality jobs that are being created, those low quality jobs are finding low cost economies. The quality of the Motorola jobs is hugely overhyped. They were good jobs but the market is moving a lot of software production jobs to China, India and parts of eastern Europe. The driver for the closer is primarily poor company performance.
> 
> I have no doubt that we have fewer of the competitive advantages for being the automatic choice as a corporate european base than we had 7- 10 years ago but there still is a sales pitch. A number of It firms recently announced large investments which is a positive sign.
> 
> What we will have to accept is that the aspect of the "quality" of jobs that is reducing is job security. More and more jobs and companies will come and go with greater ease and frequency


Lower quality service jobs and unsustainable construction and public service positions are being created. Some high end jobs are being created but theres not many Irish people who will benefit from these jobs(google for instance imports best staff from across europe/world and low skilled workers have'nt qualifications to do such jobs). when jobs like procter and gamble go, where are all these low skilled workers gonna find similar employment? Our current economic success was built on high numbers employed in low skilled factories as well as in construction and high end jobs and service industry. Construction is slowing and will shed jobs as is the foreign multinational sector.

We should be setting up our own multinationals and importing  best staff from likes of poland india etc as well as employing the best Irish and taking on the world not relying on foreign multinationals coming here and giving us a slice. No Irish high tech company has a turnover over 100million dollars which is worrying. I can't think of any major indigenous companies to come out of IFSC in internationally traded services. 
http://www.finfacts.com/irelandbusinessnews/publish/article_10009288.shtml


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## sunrock (11 Mar 2007)

ClubMan said:


> _IDA _is primarily focused on foreign direct inward investment. _Enterprise Ireland _is primarily focused on helping indigenous _Irish _companies.


 
That may well be but there is no doubt where the big money was directed.
The well heeled professionals in the IDA/ENT IRL weren`t interested in  helping small irish companies and visiting their workshops......no it was much nicer to fly off to u.s. to tempt u.s multinationals with irish tax payers money to set up here....much more glamourous,don`t you think.
Don`t forget APPLE was started in a garage.
However i do acknowledge the IDA`s success, but feel that our niche and advantages have now gone to lower cost economies who are still within the E.U.  Even if we had developed some big irish multinationals, no doubt they would also be moving to cheaper cost countries.
Another problem is we won`t be getting such generous funding from the E.C in future.
Clearly the future is one of lower wages if ireland is to have low or moderate unemployment. Our government could give a lead here ,as they set the salary levels of our public servants...judging from past experience that`s not going to happen.


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## z107 (11 Mar 2007)

> The well heeled professionals in the IDA/ENT IRL weren`t interested in helping small irish companies and visiting their workshops


I also don't understand the logic of the IDA funding foreign companies that are in direct competition with indigenious irish companies.


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## ClubMan (11 Mar 2007)

sunrock said:


> That may well be but there is no doubt where the big money was directed.


Perhaps not. Maybe you can post details of the _IDA _and _EI _budgets so we can compare them?


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## extopia (11 Mar 2007)

Despite a few hundred job losses in the last couple of weeks, the Irish labour market is still at full employment. 

Someone above blamed globalisation for taking these jobs away from us. Eh, wasn't it globalisation that brought them here in the first place.

When a company decides to relocate a manufacturing operation, labour and other costs of doing business in Ireland are only one factor in the decision. Other factors include road and technologhy infrastructure, the tax base, and the stability of the business environment. Even though labour costs may be cheaper in Eastern Europe, other factors outweigh this and so many companies continue to operate here. 

I would suspect that the most important factor keeping low-skilled manufacturing operations here is the ready availability of labour (thanks to our influx of immigrants), a business-friendly environment, and a low tax base.

But once the numbers don't add up for any individual organisation, they will relocate. And who could blame them? A few people I know seem to think that a company should be happy enough to make a profit of say €10m from operations in Ireland, even if they could make €15m elsewhere. I say "dream on."


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## Purple (12 Mar 2007)

sunrock said:


> That may well be but there is no doubt where the big money was directed.
> The well heeled professionals in the IDA/ENT IRL weren`t interested in  helping small irish companies and visiting their workshops......no it was much nicer to fly off to u.s. to tempt u.s multinationals with irish tax payers money to set up here....much more glamourous, don’t you think.


I work very closely with Enterprise Ireland and find a massive difference between their Irish based staff and their overseas staff. Their Irish based staff are incompetent, slow and uninventive. They are the stereotypical  civil servants (I am not suggecting that all civil or public servants are like this!). Their overseas staff, on the other hand, is excellent. They are efficient, dynamic and utterly professional. They will do everything they can to promote Irish service and manufacturing businesses in their efforts to develop exports. Ironically the biggest obstacle they face is their own colleges in Ireland. It is no coincident that the overseas offices are staffed by people from the private sector on fixed term contracts.




sunrock said:


> However i do acknowledge the IDA`s success, but feel that our niche and advantages have now gone to lower cost economies who are still within the E.U.  Even if we had developed some big irish multinationals, no doubt they would also be moving to cheaper cost countries.
> Another problem is we won`t be getting such generous funding from the E.C in future.
> Clearly the future is one of lower wages if ireland is to have low or moderate unemployment. Our government could give a lead here ,as they set the salary levels of our public servants...judging from past experience that`s not going to happen.


We have Irish Multinationals and they either manufacture in cheap economies (Dimplex manufacture 100% in Asia) or they grow and invest in larger economies (CRH, Greencore etc) We do have smaller Irish companies that have grown from nothing ten years ago to control over 90% of the world market in their field (Creganna Medical devices etc) and many Irish companies have followed their customers to lower cost economies by opening up local offices and manufacturing plants. The main barrier to doing this is not money but the very low quality of Irish management personnel in high tech manufacturing. In my experience this is one of the areas where the Americans excel.  



umop3p!sdn said:


> I also don't understand the logic of the IDA funding foreign companies that are in direct competition with indigenious irish companies.


 I have not seen a clear case where they have. On the other hand the companies they have brought here are happy to buy locally where they can (the French being the notable exception).


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## z107 (12 Mar 2007)

> I have not seen a clear case where they have. On the other hand the companies they have brought here are happy to buy locally where they can (the French being the notable exception).



This
[broken link removed]

is in direct competition with these
intelligo, qbs, sort my books and many others.


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## clon (12 Mar 2007)

Their are a fair number of manufacturing jobs going East, but this is not anything different to whats happening in the rest of Europe and the US. I was reading the Sunday Times yersterday they had a piece about the German economy doing well,it expanded by 3.7% last year and unemployment went down by 1%, but the DAX 30 ( 30 biggest German companies) laid off 44,000 workers, and are forcing workers to cut their pay and conditions to keep their jobs.

About 2 weeks ago a press release was issued by a FG candidate in West Dublin stating that the Lucent Alcatel plant was closing with the loss of about 350 jobs, the company had to come out publicly and state that only 70 jobs were going as part of a global round of 10,000 job cuts. So, some of the extra attention over the last few weeks to job cuts is related to the election.

[broken link removed]

Their are also a record 14,000 job vacancies in tech, and one of the main problems is the lack of graduates in the sector. The number of PHD students in University is to double in the next 6 years, and the state backed R&D is to expand substantially and close the gap with some of our fellow European countries.

A case example that I would give is Cork, where I am from, Between the plants in Fermoy and Pfizer about 1,000 jobs are under threat or will be lost ( about 500 jobs in the Pfizer plants could still be saved if the plants are sold on). One of the two Pfizer plants in question makes Lipitor which will be going off patent soon, Walmart are selling generic drugs off patent for $4 per script, and the second plant was to be the site of their new blockbuster drug which failed trials.

I can think of 4 plants that are expanding in Cork in the tech and pharma sector creating over 2,000 jobs, e.g. Amgen, Eli Lilly etc. Beyond that VMWare and Vivendi are to create another 500 jobs, so the net effect in Cork will be a net gain of quality jobs. The media don't seem to understand that sometimes plants close in the private sector because the sales aren't there, not just because of high costs. Unemployment in the Cork region is 3.7%  AFAIK.

The basic wage in Poland is €1.30, here €8.30 for low end jobs we will never be able to compete that's just a fact of life, and yes our wages are high here which may put off some companies alright. The workforce has expanded by over 3% net per year ( after losses) for the last few years, a major reason for this high increase has been Poles etc. coming here and filling positions that would otherwise be left vacant, if left vacant that in itself creates inflation because of the need to attract people to fill the posts, not all the jobs in an economy can be high end.


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## Raskolnikov (12 Mar 2007)

clon said:


> Their are also a record 14,000 job vacancies in tech, and one of the main problems is the lack of graduates in the sector.


That report was commissioned by DCU. Strange that this report hasn't been made available to the public. Could it be that the figures are fudged and that DCU are only interested in keeping there course numbers up?


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## clon (12 Mar 2007)

Raskolnikov said:


> That report was commissioned by DCU. Strange that this report hasn't been made available to the public. Could it be that the figures are fudged and that DCU are only interested in keeping there course numbers up?


I have heard other people say the same thing as the survey results to me, not using that survey as a source, their was a big falloff after the dotcom crash in enrollments, and they are finding it hard to find skilled graduates. Could it be that you are being cynical because the survey doesn't agree with you point of view.


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## joe sod (13 Mar 2007)

I agree with Sunrocks point, we have put too many of our eggs into the multinational basket, resources should be diverted from the IDA towards Enterprise Ireland. From what I heard the motorola operation in cork was actually profitable but not profitable enough for headquarters in america. We will never grow indiginous technology by concentrating so much on multinationals. The intellectual powerhouse of these companies are in america and thats where the real development happens. Even high skilled irish workers in these companies only see a small part of the overall technology of these companies. Ask yourself this question if Intel decided to close their irish operations would the Intel workers be able to set up a similar company manufacturing semi conductors even on a small scale, the answer is no. We have to build our own companies from scratch, like CRH, like ryanair. That means that serious money has to be invested . Ireland has a low percentage of PHD graduates, true. However there are few irish companies and even multinationals in ireland that would be fully able to employ them, most end up emigrating.


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## bonzos (17 Mar 2007)

All pay should be peformance related.This flush out the waisters who do as little as possible and are protected 100% by the unions.It is daylight robbery what some employee up to.


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## potnoodler (18 Mar 2007)

thewatcher said:


> What's worst is these are high end jobs that are going and being replaced by burger flippers,pizza slicers and retail assistants.I saw figures the other day where the bottom 40% of workers are not even paying tax.
> When stamp duty goes i'd love to know,where the money is going to come from !.


 

They still pay VAT on practically every penny they spend not to mention the other forms of indirect taxation car,tv licence,prsi etc. All this comes to be a far higher percentage of a lower base not the same for the top earners who can avail of the FF tax loopholes.
Scary thought that nearly half the working population are earning the bare minimum wage yet the average earnings this year are expected to rise to €34k, can only balance by figuring that there must be a fairly large percentage of the population on top earning a nice crust.


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## Marie (19 Mar 2007)

I seem to remember a recent poll showed Ireland had more new-made millionaires per head of population than any other 'developed' country!  

It would seem sensible given the drift of jobs to the Indian and Chinese continents that new indiginous industry be developed.  However the questions then are (a) what field(s) could Ireland excel in (b) where would the intellectual resources to develop them come from (c) how could they compete when foreign investment is treated preferentially in terms of taxation.

These issues are particularly poignant for small businesses and exploratory ventures and are probably the reason they don't feature in Ireland.


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## joe sod (20 Mar 2007)

good point marie, this is the sort of thinking that is now required, there needs to be think tanks like in america, but the government has to act on their recomendations, there was a task force set up on the physical sciences a number of years ago, alot of effort was put into it, but hardly any of its recomendations was implemented, why because it would involve big changes in teaching etc and the government did not want to upset the teachers. As Eddie hobbs pointed out on prime time last week only one of his recomendations on ripp off republic was implemented, the lifting of the groceries order, in the mean time ireland is becoming more uncompetitive because of a failure of government to tackle the vested interests.


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## Marie (20 Mar 2007)

Hopefully the recent taste of the good life and the confidence gleaned from punching above its weight internationally has produced the _Zeitgeist _in Ireland where strong leadership and initiative can take root.........visionary leadership which is above partisan and vested interests.  Is there any chance?  So many highly-talented leaders in the fields of commerce and industry work outside Ireland.  Certainly there is a disproportionate number of movers and shakers in the top echelons of British business and industry who are Irish.   I don't think money alone is an inducement; a clearly-defined challenge with space to innovate might be.


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## Purple (21 Mar 2007)

If the government were really serious about developing indigenous knowledge based high tech manufacturing they would be doing what the Japanese did in the 50's, the Koreans did in the 90's and the Chinese are doing now; they would be pouring money into existing businesses to cover most or all of the risk associated with R&D and product development, they would be 100% funding joint ventures between third level institutions and industry and they would be offering the same level of support to existing businesses that need to up skill that they offer to micro businesses that are spun off research projects in Universities.
If they want to know how to do it they should read a biography of the first 10-15 years of Sony.


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## z107 (21 Mar 2007)

> they would be pouring money into existing businesses to cover most or all of the risk associated with R&D and product development,



The problem with that approach, for Ireland 2007, is that they would end up suffocating small business in paperwork, red tape and bureaucracy. By the time any money is actually awarded, the company will have long since perished.

How about some tax breaks instead? - far easier to administer. Even just leveling the playing field so that people who do want to start a new knowledged based company are stung for tax, would help. 

Reduced tax credits and PRSI entitlements do not encourage people to start companies.


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## room305 (21 Mar 2007)

Was talking to some people involved in the games industry recently and they are quite dismissive of tax breaks. Fine if you are a large multinational generating large profits and want to write-off any R&D against tax liabilities but little use to small innovatives companies that are many years from making a profit (if ever).

Labour costs were a concern but the lack of available talent was the biggest one. Most talent needs to be imported. There is little point spending billions "incentivizing" R&D when we don't have the available skills base here. Reminds  me of ComReg's drive to increase broadband proliferation by selling the benefits of broadband to the public when the problem was actually a complete lack of broadband infrastructure.

The government should focus on attracting the cream of foreign engineers and scientists from top Indian, Asian, Eastern European and Russian etc. universities to work/research here in our own universities. Then it will be very easy to motivate and spin-off companies for research and commercialisation.


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## aircobra19 (21 Mar 2007)

clon said:


> I have heard other people say the same thing as the survey results to me, not using that survey as a source, their was a big falloff after the dotcom crash in enrollments, and they are finding it hard to find skilled graduates. Could it be that you are being cynical because the survey doesn't agree with you point of view.



I don't see where all these IT jobs are. Anyone I know in IT inlcuding myself isn't seeing it. Only places reporting it that I see are the media the agencies, and the colleges. The fall off in applicants because young people can see their peers having a hard time in IT. Where people having troubling filling places is where they are looking for specialist skills and experience. But a lot (most?) IT companies don't train their staff. So you reap what you sow IMO.


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## Purple (21 Mar 2007)

umop3p!sdn said:


> The problem with that approach, for Ireland 2007, is that they would end up suffocating small business in paperwork, red tape and bureaucracy. By the time any money is actually awarded, the company will have long since perished.


 The paperwork is a big deal at the moment because most of the funding comes from EU structural funds. Funding that comes from local sources is not as bureaucratic. Why not supply specialists from Enterprise Ireland to take care of that for free?



umop3p!sdn said:


> How about some tax breaks instead? - far easier to administer. Even just leveling the playing field so that people who do want to start a new knowledged based company are stung for tax, would help.


There is already a scheme for that which front end loads grants for knowledge based companies that are starting up. It's called HPSU (High Potential Start Up) funding. The problem with that system is that these companies are snapped up by multinationals before that get a chance to grow so the knowledge and growth potential go over seas. There is little or nothing available for existing SME's that want to grow their business by moving into higher value added areas.   



room305 said:


> Was talking to some people involved in the games industry recently and they are quite dismissive of tax breaks. Fine if you are a large multinational generating large profits and want to write-off any R&D against tax liabilities but little use to small innovatives companies that are many years from making a profit (if ever).


 Agreed. Corporation tax is 12.5% so getting it back on the tiny profit, if any, made by SME's does nothing to help them. Say a company makes 5% net profit on a turnover of €5 million. That's €250'000. The cost to run an R&D department with two engineers would be higher than that. What company will risk their entire profit on a high risk venture?



room305 said:


> Labour costs were a concern but the lack of available talent was the biggest one. Most talent needs to be imported. There is little point spending billions "incentivizing" R&D when we don't have the available skills base here. .


 I agree that labour costs are the major factor but I disagree that there is a shortage of talent, not in medical device anyway. The problem is that the talent is tied up in multinationals that manufacture here. The thing the government has to figure out is how to get that talent into private industry in Ireland and how private industry can us that talent to grow international businesses. The only way I can see it happen is to remove some or all of the risk for the talent and the businesses that want to employ it. 



room305 said:


> The government should focus on attracting the cream of foreign engineers and scientists from top Indian, Asian, Eastern European and Russian etc. universities to work/research here in our own universities. Then it will be very easy to motivate and spin-off companies for research and commercialisation.


 What would stop them from setting up their companies back home when they were finished their research? Don't say they could do it by protecting the intellectual property generated by the universities because even multi-billion dollar companies can't do that.


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## aircobra19 (21 Mar 2007)

clon said:


> ...a big falloff after the dotcom crash in enrollments, and they are finding it hard to find skilled graduates. ...






room305 said:


> ...
> Labour costs were a concern but the lack of available talent was the biggest one. Most talent needs to be imported. There is little point spending billions "incentivizing" R&D when we don't have the available skills base here. ...



Again I don't see where this is comming from, other than the media, colleges and recruitment agencies. Take Motorola, the closure is part of worldwide cost cutting exercise. Not lack of skilled workers, graduates.


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## Purple (21 Mar 2007)

aircobra19 said:


> Again I don't see where this is comming from, other than the media, colleges and recruitment agencies. Take Motorola, the closure is part of worldwide cost cutting exercise. Not lack of skilled workers, graduates.


 I agree, it's all about wage costs for the MNC's


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## aircobra19 (21 Mar 2007)

Superman said:


> Anyone know why there is such a spate of Job losses in the last couple of weeks?
> Is just that the media are turning their attention to it?



Yes. IMO.

Even in times of high employment, unemployment and closures happen. Thats not to say its as easy as walking from one job into another, as I don't believe that. Or at least into one well paid job to another. Theres a lot of low paid jobs that will be financially tough because of the high cost of living. Theres a lot of people living for the now, on credit.


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## Marie (22 Mar 2007)

Entrepreneur talent and R&D cannot flourish in the current milieu of (American-style)  'short-term-ism'.  They need some fundamental security with transparent (un-corrupt!!!) and consistent government incentive as bedrock.


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## soma (22 Mar 2007)

room305 said:


> Was talking to some people involved in the games industry recently
> .
> .
> Labour costs were a concern but the lack of available talent was the biggest one. Most talent needs to be imported.



I have friends who have worked in the Games industry for many years. What these companies are saying is that there is no talent available _for the price they are willing to pay_. The salaries most of these companies are willing to pay are *atrocious*. 

Not only that but they constantly seem to only want young 23-27 year old programmers who are single etc, so they don't mind working endless 'free' weekends and crazy levels of unpaid overtime.


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## soma (22 Mar 2007)

aircobra19 said:


> I don't see where all these IT jobs are. Anyone I know in IT inlcuding myself isn't seeing it. Only places reporting it that I see are the media the agencies, and the colleges.



I completely agree. Alot of it stems from the problem that agencies such as FAS etc seem to get away with calling almost _anything_ an "I.T. job".


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## aircobra19 (22 Mar 2007)

soma said:


> I have friends who have worked in the Games industry for many years. What these companies are saying is that there is no talent available _for the price they are willing to pay_. The salaries most of these companies are willing to pay are *atrocious*.
> 
> Not only that but they constantly seem to only want young 23-27 year old programmers who are single etc, so they don't mind working endless 'free' weekends and crazy levels of unpaid overtime.



Thats the nature of the games industry, not just in Ireland either. Days of big bonus'es and skyhigh salaries are gone. Salaries are ok if you have experience. Hours are terrible though.



soma said:


> I completely agree. Alot of it stems from the problem that agencies such as FAS etc seem to get away with calling almost _anything_ an "I.T. job".



In fairness FAS isn't the worst. *http://tinyurl.com/ynucu4

*Total of: 6904 Jobs*

    Animal, Land, Marine, Mining & Exploration (162)
    Arts, Literature (35)
    Cleaning, Security & Maintenance (553)
    Factory, Production & Related Services (247)
    Hair & Beauty (149)
    Hotel, Tourism , Travel & Catering (1626)
    Information Technology (279)
    Professional, Administrative, Clerical (1127)
    Purchasing, Warehousing, Transport, Distribution (424)
    Sales, Marketing, PR, Advertising & Property (804)
    Social, Health, Welfare, Childcare (427)
    Sport & Leisure (50)
    Trades & Related Occupations (1152)
    Training & Education (59)
* 
Thats the national job agency. You think you'd see some sign of 14,000 tech vacancies there wouldn't you.


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## beattie (22 Mar 2007)

aircobra19 said:


> In fairness FAS isn't the worst. *http://tinyurl.com/ynucu4*
> 
> **Total of: 6904 Jobs**
> 
> ...


 
As someone who attended their recent expo in Croke Park there wasn't as much in the way of concrete jobs as I would have expected. More aimed at a school leaver I thought


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## aircobra19 (22 Mar 2007)

beattie said:


> As someone who attended their recent expo in Croke Park there wasn't as much in the way of concrete jobs as I would have expected. More aimed at a school leaver I thought



The IT jobs in Dublin on the FAS site have a salary range between 20~82k. That can't be school leavers. They seem to be real jobs too, judging by the company details in the adverts. Unlike the generic imaginary ones that some recruitment agencies avertise. You could be right about the expo, I wasn't there so I can't comment.


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## sunrock (22 Mar 2007)

It is very hard to know about the job market,until one starts looking for a job.
As mentioned colleges,media,recruitment agencies have a vested interest in talking up the jobs market.
The fact that a lot of jobs are done through agencies and are short contracts or indeed part time or from one day to another, obscures the true position.
For example if a company has one position and places an ad with 5 agencies....these agencies then advertise this job and maybe each agency talks to 20 canidates each .....thats 100 people thinking that this is a possible job for them.....of course the agencies tell most canidates that they need abit more experience or there is some other reason that there are not quite suitable.
The overall affect is to give the public the impression that there are such a lot of jobs waiting to be filled....whereas this may not be the case at all.
The reason  that people who lost their jobs at places like motorola and other mncs are so concerned , is that they know they won`t find comparable jobs so easily.
O.K. maybe they can find a lower paid job or a less qualified job but the competition for these jobs is very intense with all the immigrants, who incidentally are probably over qualified for these jobs, also applying.
To be honest i am not sure what the job situation is....i suspect it is o.k. in big urban areas and not so good in remoter areas.


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## Marie (22 Mar 2007)

Some crunch-able statistics here on Irish employment trends up to 2004 from the Central Statistics Office but not much in the way of analysis [broken link removed]


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## aircobra19 (22 Mar 2007)

Marie said:


> Some crunch-able statistics here on Irish employment trends up to 2004 from the Central Statistics Office but not much in the way of analysis [broken link removed]



Can't see anything about 14000 IT jobs in there either...


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## joe sod (22 Mar 2007)

Marie said:


> Entrepreneur talent and R&D cannot flourish in the current milieu of (American-style) 'short-term-ism'. They need some fundamental security with transparent (un-corrupt!!!) and consistent government incentive as bedrock.


 
good point, you can bet that the top jobs in american multinationals including motorola even in difficult times are very secure. They may be short termist in ireland but they are long termist in america. In other words to be really where its at with these companies and to see the full picture and to be in the know, you have to work in their american operations. I know out sourcing has affected american workers also, but they feel alot more pressure and heat from the american government than they do from an irish government. Even if these companies move operations to asia you can be sure they will not be given the full picture, the most important work will always be done in america. Therefore a big shift in government stategy here must now be implemented to wean ireland off multinationals.


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## davet (23 Mar 2007)

aircobra19 said:


> I don't see where all these IT jobs are. Anyone I know in IT inlcuding myself isn't seeing it.



I also work in IT, as do alot of people I know. Most of the companys are *crying* out for staff, highly paid staff on well above the industrial average. They do get plenty of interest too when interviewing but most of the applicants are frankly incompetent.


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## aircobra19 (23 Mar 2007)

davet said:


> I also work in IT, as do alot of people I know. Most of the companys are *crying* out for staff, highly paid staff on well above the industrial average. They do get plenty of interest too when interviewing but most of the applicants are frankly incompetent.



You'd think people spot that from the CV and filter accordingly. What difference does the industrial average make? Supply and demand. I know we offered roles at 35~45k and got few applicants. Mainly because a lot of potential applicants are getting 45~60 elsewhere. Interviewed and found most applicants were under qualified, under experienced. Hardly surprising. The cost of living means people expect higer salaries theres no escaping that. I'm sure if we'd offered 50~60 the calibre of applicants would have been much higher. We could also upskill are existing staff. But hardly anywhere does that properly now.


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## jmayo (26 Mar 2007)

Can someone please tell me where all these IT jobs are?
Motorolla employees knew this was coming with months, a good friend informed me of this back in mid January.  It only officially makes it to the media recently.  Watch Dell, they will be making decisions regarding future and the move out of Limerick will be moved up in order to cut costs further.


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## Howitzer (26 Mar 2007)

A lot of what is termed IT jobs by the Govt and the IDA are nothing of the sort. Call centres for Google, localisataion for Symantec and shrink wrapping boxes for Creative Labs.


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## conor_mc (27 Mar 2007)

Good news at IBM in Cork and Galway today according to NewsTalk this morning - 100 software dev jobs in Cork and another 30 in Galway apparently.


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