Fears of 60 job losses at Dell supplier

FEARS of more job losses intensified in Limerick last night with unconfirmed reports that a company that supplies Dell is due to lay off more than 60 workers.

The company, which cannot be named at this stage, referred media queries to a US-based spokesman who was not responding to calls.

Most of the company’s production order book is dependent on Dell.

It is estimated that more than 10,000 jobs in the greater Limerick area are dependent on Dell, which has laid off about 700 temporary workers.

Temporary workers are laid off and re-hired periodically depending on the weight of orders. But reports on these latest job cuts say only a fifth of those let go will be re-hired in the New Year.

Another Dell supplier, Flextronics, is this week laying off 100 of its 290 workers.

Dell has built a huge plant in Lodz in Poland that has twice the manufacturing capacity of its Raheen operation, which employs 3,000 permanent workers.

Dell is expected to switch more of its laptop production from Limerick to Lodz by the end of 2009 and this is likely to hit jobs on the permanent Limerick payroll.

Like other major corporations, Dell’s share price has collapsed over the past eight months.

Fine Gael TD Michael Noonan yesterday repeated his call for Tánaiste Mary Coughlan to spell out the situation at Dell, after she had been briefed by the company’s senior executives.