Job taskforces have poor track record

IN 2007, then Taoiseach Bertie Ahern greeted the loss of 330 Motorola jobs in Cork with the response: “Thankfully, unlike in years past when we set up taskforces that were able, in reality, to do very little, in the last six or seven years we have been able to send in taskforces that can train, retrain, skill and upskill.”

However, as one of those taskforces prepares to offer support the 1,900 Dell staff whose jobs are to go in Limerick, the nagging doubt remains that, as one senior trade unionist put it: “Taskforces are a smokescreen to make the Government look like they are actually doing something and hide the reality that they are doing nothing.”

The Dell staff are coming onto the jobs market at the worst time. As was confirmed by the Central Statistics Office yesterday, jobs are being lost at a rate of 510 per day. Furthermore manufacturing, in which the majority of the Limerick staff are trained, is becoming obsolete here as cheaper economies attract the multinationals.