36 jobs lost in Derry

An engineering company in Co Derry is closing with the loss of 36 jobs.

TBF Thompson Engineering, which makes trailers for the agriculture and construction industries, said the plant in Garvagh is to close by the end of March following consultations with the workforce.

The company is a subsidiary of the TBF Thompson (Garvagh) Group, which employs more than 200 people in the distribution of trucks and construction equipment.

TBF said the trailer subsidiary closure had been forced on them by two years of losses despite efforts to turn the company around.

The announcement came as it was claimed one manufacturing job was lost every two minutes last year.

Ken Robinson, Ulster Unionist MLA for East Antrim, said many of the jobs had been lost to Asia and Eastern Europe where labour was cheaper.

He proposed that to redress the situation the EU should place import duties on goods coming from countries outside the union.

The pattern of out-sourcing of manufacturing jobs was being repeated in the call-centre sector, he said.

“If this happens in both the manufacturing and services sectors just what is left ?” he asked.

“Imaginative measures” need to be taken at a European level to tackle the growing problem, he said.

“If goods are manufactured in non-European locations they must have sufficient levels of import duties placed on them if they are coming into the European Union to offset the cheaper labour costs in low-wage economies,” he said.

Mr Robinson said: “Free trade is desirable but not if we are ultimately going to wipe out our core industrial base.”