1900 Dell Jobs Gone

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The computer multi-national, Dell, has announced that its cutting the workforce at its plant in Limerick by 1,900 in the next 12 months.

The announcement comes as employees are attending a series of meetings at the plant to be told details of the redundancies.

Video links were set up at the plant, indicating that Chief Executive Michael Dell may address staff from the US.


The 3,000 Dell workers were called to the meetings which were to begin at 9am.

Space was set aside at two separate locations at the facility to brief two sets of shift workers involved in manufacturing.

IT, legal and marketing staff will meet separately at 10am.

Dell has been involved in a global review of its operations for several months, in an effort to cut $3bn a year off its costs by 2011.

It is estimated that another 10,000 jobs in sub-supply companies rely on Dell business and a large-scale withdrawal will affect jobs in the wider industrial community in the midwest.

Sad day for the South west in particular, but also for Ireland as a whole. 

[mylestheslasher]

Terrible, if not unsurprising news. Hopefully some of the people that leave may be innovative enough to start there own businesses and slowly build up the area again. The days of the large multinationals stampeding into ireland is gone i'm afraid.

[Billys Boots]

Very bad blow for Limerick (and Ireland).

[Declan]

Dreadful news altogether. Hope the ripple effect isn't as great as is feared with other American multinationals

[Hound]

It was only a matter of time before the manufacturing jobs went, and it certainly is bad news for a lot of people.

However on the bright side Dell still have around 2,000 employees between Limerick and Cherrywood, and they appear to be sustainable.

[mannix]

I am wondering will ireland ever recover from this meltdown?
Commiserations to any who has lost there job. My brother,sister,two brotherinlaws and a good few lads I know at home have been laid off. One was working for a very busy contractor that believed the day was not long enough for him to make money and believed it would never end, it seems to have ended alright.

If there is a positive spot in this a house that was 189,000 a year ago is now 165,000, at least somneone may get a bit of relief when they buy.
I reckon we will see a lot of garages and shops close down in 2009.
But where can you go for work?

[lynchbhoy]

Your wee man says that the pay for the  jobs was 10 to 14 Euro per hour in Limerick and will be 3 Euro per hour in Poland.

the mayor of limerick on telly this morning still reckoned the cost of operating the limerick plant was the same as operating the polish version...had to wonder where he got that idea from - straight away you know the wages in poland are going to be roughly a quarter of what they are here.

this news shouldnt be a surprise, firstly they moved/consolidated all their manufacturing in Ireland to Limerick and had made the noises a few years ago that indicated they wouldnt be long for this country.
Well manufacturing anyhow.

Would expect their sales/marketing to be scaled down a bit also in Cherrywood.
Dont know if limerick will remain open at all for much longer as they will obv seek to consolidate back up to Dublin.

I have stopped buying some dell stuff a while ago as its no longer good enough (laptops)
and will now stop buying dell pc's too and go with HP instead.This might not be a lot every year, but certainly would be 50 plus units.
fcuk dell.

[Bogball XV]

Terrible, if not unsurprising news. Hopefully some of the people that leave may be innovative enough to start there own businesses and slowly build up the area again. The days of the large multinationals stampeding into ireland is gone i'm afraid.

That's what we said in the 60's too I think.
The fact is that jobs such as these cannot be relied upon, when Dell moved to Limerick it was because we were cheap and tax rates were low, other locations around the world missed out on this investment because they couldn't offer low costs that Ireland could, now we're getting the same hit that countless other locations have over the years when Ireland gained at their expense.  Unfortunately it will always be this way as multinationals cannot have an emotional attachment to locations and all decisions are made based on the bottom line.
What we need to do now is to try and incentivise those laid off to create indigenous companies producing products that others want.  I don't know what they can produce, but then, I'm neither innovative nor creative.  I don't know how transferrable the skillset of the workers being laid off are, but the main projects I see being worthwhile for both the country and the individuals are renewable energy projects, ranging from offshore or onshore wind farms to algae ponds, and I would like to see govt incentives in these areas ramped up, it's not too late to become world leaders in these areas, but it soon will be.

[Hound]

will now stop buying dell pc's too and go with HP instead.This might not be a lot every year, but certainly would be 50 plus units.
fcuk dell.

Do Dell still not employ more people in Ireland than HP?
The've certainly contributed a lot more to the Irish exchequer over the last 10 years.

Dell has been good for Ireland. Very good. Not that it was every their objective to be good for Ireland. But I can't condemn a company for making a sound economic decision.

Of course anyone who doesn't like their products shouldnt buy them!

[lynchbhoy]

Terrible, if not unsurprising news. Hopefully some of the people that leave may be innovative enough to start there own businesses and slowly build up the area again. The days of the large multinationals stampeding into ireland is gone i'm afraid.

That's what we said in the 60's too I think.
The fact is that jobs such as these cannot be relied upon, when Dell moved to Limerick it was because we were cheap and tax rates were low, other locations around the world missed out on this investment because they couldn't offer low costs that Ireland could, now we're getting the same hit that countless other locations have over the years when Ireland gained at their expense.  Unfortunately it will always be this way as multinationals cannot have an emotional attachment to locations and all decisions are made based on the bottom line.
What we need to do now is to try and incentivise those laid off to create indigenous companies producing products that others want.  I don't know what they can produce, but then, I'm neither innovative nor creative.  I don't know how transferrable the skillset of the workers being laid off are, but the main projects I see being worthwhile for both the country and the individuals are renewable energy projects, ranging from offshore or onshore wind farms to algae ponds, and I would like to see govt incentives in these areas ramped up, it's not too late to become world leaders in these areas, but it soon will be.

without spending too much time on thinking about it, the whole eco/renewable energy thing - esp given the craic with russia holding its reliant and dependant neighbours to ransom the other day showing us a sign of things to come and when we will be fecked without an alternative - being last on the pipeline to get gas etc.
We need to have our own energy source, if we can create enough, we could actually sellit the other direction into europe where they are finding it difficult to cover their energy requirement.

I think I read we have the third largest coastline in europe.
Wave and wind electricity generation might still be in their early stages and not yet fully economical to run, but I think this is a valid source of energy and a potentially large employer.

Another energy alternative is rape seed oil (or some kind of oil gained from arable crops). We have weather suited to some of these desireable crops and we have land largely unused because of eu quotas etc.
We should be getting back to farming and producing the oil for future car usage.A large export industry for us potentially. Esp if we get the jump on it and start soon.

Secondly the world is lacking food, wheat/maize etc
Again we have mostly good enough weather and land lying idle.
Exporting flour is another option. Prices are rising and demand is rising exponentially. Italy suffered 'pasta droughts' last year because of the lack of flour at times. Had to use the packet stuff (which a lot of traditionalists are loathe to use).

I am sure the more creative out there can come up with more, but these are potential industries that would be midlands or western & northern costal based.

[lynchbhoy]

will now stop buying dell pc's too and go with HP instead.This might not be a lot every year, but certainly would be 50 plus units.
fcuk dell.

Do Dell still not employ more people in Ireland than HP?
The've certainly contributed a lot more to the Irish exchequer over the last 10 years.

Dell has been good for Ireland. Very good. Not that it was every their objective to be good for Ireland. But I can't condemn a company for making a sound economic decision.

Of course anyone who doesn't like their products shouldnt buy them!

thesy have been pulling out for years now so this isnt a recent opinion i have had, only in the last year I have started switching to hp, plus dell are outsourcing more and more of their call centres (based in dublin) to india.
Meanwhile they have been putting the spin on it for years and getting increased IDA grants. I wonder now will they be asked to pay back any of this....

and their products are getting worse.

[Donagh]

Very sorry to hear this but as their business is based on selling rubbish it's obvious they would seek a lower cost base sooner or later. 

[mylestheslasher]

Off the point but I've been buying Dell PC's & Laptops for 10 years now at work and have never had a problem with quality or service. The fact is, any industry in this country that requires excessive manual assembly (outside medical device for the moment) is in danger. Poland is 1/4 the cost of labour as Ireland and China is cheaper again. Unless we keep coming up with high end clever products manufacturing will start leaving these shores. I work in medical device manufacturing and I can tell you the pressures are getting bigger each year.

[Dinny Breen]

Do Dell still not employ more people in Ireland than HP?

HP employ over 4000 people in Ireland and will be cutting that workforce by 10% through voluntary redundacies and natural attrition. These job losses will be mainly in manufacturing.

[lynchbhoy]

Off the point but I've been buying Dell PC's & Laptops for 10 years now at work and have never had a problem with quality or service. The fact is, any industry in this country that requires excessive manual assembly (outside medical device for the moment) is in danger. Poland is 1/4 the cost of labour as Ireland and China is cheaper again. Unless we keep coming up with high end clever products manufacturing will start leaving these shores. I work in medical device manufacturing and I can tell you the pressures are getting bigger each year.

Dell internal components are now the yellow packcheapest and nastiest they can get and these machines are def not the same or as good as what you got 15 years ago! Just a gradual slide. Customer services ( the much maligned) I always found good. Well the Irish based one anyhow.

Know a lad who works in a manufacturer that creates containers for Pharma. They get some components from abroad, and last Autumn they found that while the prev couple of years it was cheaper to buy from china, the cost had risen and their prev vendor based in Germany had dropped their prices slightly and were cheaper thn the chinese.
China and all these other countries (inc india and eventually eastern europe) will follow our lead and once they get into a boom their prices will rise (or are rising as seen in China and india).
The next big boom and where manufacturing will most likely go will be South/central america.With Africa the last bastion of cheap labour that may or may not get used ultimately.
then possibly we might have a more competitive manufacturing global market with all countries bouyed (we will prob be cheaper then and the cycle may continue)