Black news in Limerick
As expected, Dell have announced that they are to make massive layoffs in their Limerick plant: 1,900 out of 3,000 jobs will go over the next 12 months. Given the general economic outlook at present, this is undoubtedly going to mean difficult times for many families in the Limerick area over the next few years.
If one were to look for a bright spot on the horizon, we might consider that when Digital Equipment pulled out of Galway in 1993 with the loss of many jobs, it was seen at the time as an absolute calamity. Time has shown, however, that instead it acted as the catalyst for the creation of a raft of independent IT engineering companies started up by the former DEC engineers.
We must work to ensure that a similar outcome will arise in Limerick in the coming years.
January 8th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
Today things look very bleak for Limerick, that is true. But as the upcoming weeks and months there will be loads of very interesting business ideas being bounced around. As long as even a few of those idea are brought to fruition Limerick will be even stronger in future.
January 8th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
But it’s not just the 1900 jobs in dell, or the estimated 4,000 to 16,000 (estimates vary widely) support jobs in the local economy (which was running at 10% unemployment *before* todays announcement), it’s the fact that between Waterford Wedgewood (800 jobs), Tara Mines (800 on protective notice) and Chartbusters (250 jobs at risk), we already had 1850 jobs either gone or at risk so far *this week*. And Dell has now more than doubled that in one day.
Emigration is looking better and better