Apple set to double city centre workforce in offices expansion

Technology giant Apple is on course to double its workforce at Half Moon Street in Cork City as it expands its European headquarters in the city’s suburbs to cater for 3,300 employees.

The international corporation has started fitting out two more floors of offices in Half Moon St, near the Opera House, and now has 90,000sq ft of city centre offices, in addition to its massive Hollyhill plant, which serves European, Middle Eastern, and African sales, and distribution markets.

Apple has brought 350 to 400 jobs to the top two floors of Half Moon St over the past year, and its presence there could accommodate up to 800 jobs.

Apple, which has several hundred international executives in Cork this week at a conference in Fota Island Resort, declined to say whether the extra city space was for hundreds of further jobs, in addition to the 500 new posts and Hollyhill expansion announced by them this April.

“We don’t comment on Apple property matters,” said a Cork company spokesperson, while Apple’s media centre failed to respond to queries. Apple had global revenues of $108bn (€88bn) last year.

Cork Business Association chairman Tom Durcan welcomed the jobs news.

“It’s absolutely fantastic news for the city centre, it’s real regeneration. It means hundreds more people eating, living and sleeping in the city centre every day of the week. They are good, well-paid jobs.”

He paid tribute to developers O’Callaghan Properties and Cork City Council for the area’s renewal, which facilitated up to 1,500 jobs between Opera Lane and Half Moon St.