Retail projects to create 1,600 positions

HUNDREDS of unemployed people in Cork face the prospect of a brighter 2007 as O’Callaghan Properties yesterday announced a jobs initiative.

Two new Cork city centre retail projects by the company could generate 1,600 full-time and part-time jobs along with 600 at the construction stage.

O’Callaghan Properties, which took more than 400 people off the unemployment register when it opened Mahon Point, is to replicate a training initiative in the run-up to the development of its planned St Patrick’s Street and Half Moon Street retail projects.