Upside of Dell move highlighted in study

WHEN Dell relocated 1,900 jobs from Limerick to Poland in 2009, a further 10,000 high-tech jobs were also lost in this country in the months that followed.

However, a new study suggests more than 6,000 better-paid and sustainable high-end technology jobs were created here that year.

New research, carried out by Dr Patrick Collins and Professor Seamus Grimes of the Centre for Innovation and Structural Change at NUI Galway, has attempted to uncover the fallout of the Dell decision — and ask what it has meant for the competitive positioning of Ireland more generally.

Dr Collins said: “Dell’s decision was led by many factors including consumer demand and changing tastes but much of the media pointed to the fact that Ireland had ‘priced itself out of the market’ and had become uncompetitive.

“The reality is that Dell closed only its manufacturing operation in Limerick— it continues to employ many more in other higher-end functions there.”

The research further shows the Dell case to be something of a microcosm for Ireland’s long-term relationship with foreign direct investment. “This is a relationship that has been evolving over the past 50 years that has seen lower-value added jobs replaced by higher-value added ones,” he said.

“In its most simplistic form, it’s a case of services replacing manufacturing.

“However, the picture is considerably more complex, some manufacturing techniques employed by the multinationals are highly evolved and quite sustainable.”

The research has been published in an article entitled: Cost-competitive places: shifting fortunes and the closure of Dell’s manufacturing facility in Ireland, in the international journal, European Urban and Regional Studies.

It tries to place Ireland in a global context in an era of economic turmoil.

The article equates Ireland to a developed country and notes that, like many of its neighbours in Western Europe, it has been losing jobs to cheaper countries.

The research focuses on what it terms a ‘grim’ period for Ireland’s job market in early 2009.

In a matter of months the technology sector haemorrhaged nearly 10,000 jobs, over 80% of which were relocated to other countries. However, over the same period of time, more than 6,000 jobs were announced for the same sector.