Hi-tech casualty as Celestica cuts 310 jobs

A HI-TECH electronics factory in north Dublin has become the latest casualty of the downturn in the telecommunications sector. Canadian company Celestica announced yesterday that it was closing its Swords facility, with the loss of 250 permanent and 60 temporary jobs.

Celestica once employed almost 1,000 people at its Dublin factory and has twice cut its workforce over the past two years in a bid to survive the demand dip.

Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise Mary Harney said the telecommunications business around the world had been going through a tough time lately and the closure of Celestica was yet another symptom of those difficulties.

“There are a number of companies which are already recruiting aggressively in the area and I am very confident that within a week or so I will have good news for north Dublin,” she said.

Local Fianna Fáil TD Jim Glennon said it was a dark day for the area and he promised to work tirelessly to find alternative employment for all those involved. Celestica, based in Toronto, employs around 30,000 people in 40 locations around the world, including Europe and the US.

It first established its Dublin manufacturing process in 1998 and in 2001 purchased the nearby Motorola plant and moved there, retaining some of the workers employed by the Chicago-based firm.

Celestica made printed circuit boards in Dublin and is now planning to move the production process to other factories overseas.

Workers, who were informed of the decision shortly before lunchtime yesterday, are to receive six weeks pay per year of service. The factory will close over the next three to six months because of the complexities involved in moving both the production process and existing customers.

A spokesperson for Celestica said the atmosphere at the plant was miserable yesterday. “The workers, who have an average of five years service, were still terribly shocked by the news when it came because it was so final,” he said.

The spokesperson said the company had worked to ensure that their employees found replacement jobs elsewhere and would do so again.

Meanwhile, 150 jobs are to be created at SITEL Ireland, at its call centre operation in Dublin as a result of being awarded a significant customer service contract by Microsoft.

The employees will be involved in the provision of customer service and sales support for Microsoft’s British and Irish operations. The operation is expected to be fully operational from February this year.

SITEL Ireland Ltd, a leading global provider of out-sourced customer support services, was established in 1997, and is a subsidiary of US-based SITEL Corporation.