Amazon to create 450 jobs in Irish expansion

ONLINE retail giant Amazon plans to create up to 450 jobs in Cork as part of a major expansion of its Irish operations.

The company will establish a new multilingual customer services centre at the city's Airport Business Park in May as part of an IDA-supported investment.

The centre will provide support for the company's British and French websites, with voice and email-enabled support services.

Staff will also offer additional support to the company's German website during peak periods.

The investment comes just over a year after Amazon established a Systems and Networks and Operating Centre at the Digital Hub in Dublin.

Recruitment of IT and language graduates for the Cork centre will begin immediately, Enterprise Minister Micheál Martin said last night.

Speaking from Seattle - where Amazon has its headquarters - the minister said the company was impressed with the multilingual back-up in the city.

The announcement comes on the back of a series of job announcements for Cork. In January, Amgen announced 1,100 jobs for Carrigtwohill by 2010.

Days later, 700 new jobs were secured when Government aid for Centocor was cleared by the EU, allowing the development of a new biopharmaceutical manufacturing centre in Ringskiddy.

Cork Chamber of Commerce welcomed the Amazon investment last night.

"Securing an investment of this magnitude is a major coup for Cork and speaks volumes of our ability to compete and win on a global scale," Chief Executive Conor Healy, said.

Michael Loftus, the head of Cork Institute of Technology's School of Computing and Mathematics, which will supply many of the graduates to Amazon, welcomed the announcement.

"It is a clear indication that the IT industry is on the up in this region," he said.

Mayor of County Cork Michael Creed (FG) said the investment in the Airport Business Park, along with recent job announcements there, vindicated the decision to develop the park.

"But it also showed that the airport and its continued viability was critical to the south-west region," he said.

"It makes it all the more urgent that the uncertainty about the debt issue facing Cork Airport is dealt with soon by the Government and that the previous debt-free commitment is honoured."