Dismay in Derry as figurehead hi-tech employer closes computer factory

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Dismay in Derry as figurehead hi-tech employer closes computer factory

Northern Ireland's attempt to move from a public sector-dominated economy into one driven by private hi-tech companies suffered a shattering setback yesterday with the loss of more than 900 jobs in an American computer company.

Workers at Seagate Technology in Limavady, Co Derry, were summoned to an emergency meeting yesterday afternoon by the US firm's management to learn their fate. Up to 930 jobs at the factory, which was opened a decade ago, are expected to go.

The closure of the factory comes less than a week after the Stormont government's finance minister, Peter Robinson, warned during his first budget that Northern Ireland needed to move away from reliance on the state sector to private business, especially in the field of new technology.

Workers at the factory claimed yesterday they had been told the firm may be shifting to the far east, possibly Malaysia. The trade unions will play no part in negotiating the redundancies - the workforce is not unionised.

Seagate was seen as a prime example of the type of company Northern Ireland needed to attract in order to radically alter its economy and wean it off dependence on massive Treasury subsidies. The company is a world leader in computer hard-drive manufacturing, with control of 35% of the market.

One of Northern Ireland's leading economists, Mike Smyth from the University of Ulster, said the shift to the far east was "inevitable given that they are probably wanting to get closer to the new markets in China and India".

Mr Smyth said the lesson from this latest round of hi-tech job losses was that economies such as Northern Ireland's "had to be smarter and beef up research and development" to not only attract but to keep multinationals like Seagate in western Europe. He added that going by past records the pool of labour from Seagate would be quickly absorbed back into the economy.

But the closure of the business was described by a Northern Ireland Assembly member last night as a "disaster".

John Dallat, the SDLP member for East Derry, said the devolved government at Stormont needed "to question the ethics of multinational companies who take the very best out of our workers and when the opportunity arises, build factories elsewhere and leave everybody else to pick up the pieces".

Edwin Stevenson, the mayor of Limavady, said the loss of the jobs would be felt not only in the north-west of Northern Ireland but also across the border of the Irish republic in Co Donegal.







Henry McDonald
Tuesday October 30, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
© Guardian News and Media Limited 2007
 
such a shame :(

i wonde rif the falling prices of hard drives have anythign to do with it, perhaps they need third world child labour to make them now ?
 
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