Just 20% of former Dell staff find jobs

Just 560 former Dell workers found work again despite more than €13m of EU and state funds being spent on them.

The one-in-five success rate for the former Limerick workers was much less than the rates achieved in three other states that accessed an EU globalisation fund.

Ireland applied for €63.3m from the fund over the past five years, more than any other EU state.

The total requested across the EU was €440m.

In total, over 91,000 workers in 20 countries received help to retrain, seek jobs, return to education or start their own businesses.

Ireland topped the list with seven applications for over 10,000 workers laid off from Dell, Waterford Crystal, TalkTalk, SR Technics, and construction firms.

The commissioner responsible, László Andor, said the fund was an efficient and effective tool for people who lost their jobs, with 65% of funding coming from the EU, the balance from national governments.

There are final reports from just four cases so far — two textile companies in Belgium, the Volvo car company in Sweden, and Dell in Limerick.

Between 66% and 72% of workers in Belgium and Sweden found new jobs but only 21% of the 2,589 Irish workers are in employment.

The majority of the money in the three non-Irish cases was spent on training and retraining, while those activities accounted for less than half of the €13m allocated to Dell workers.

Volvo workers in Sweden spent a sizeable sum, about 10%, on individual job search help and case management and €35,000 on entrepreneurship, resulting in 91 people starting up their own businesses.

The low re-employment rate for Dell workers brought the average for the four companies down to 45% but the commissioner said the outcome, overall, was a success. “Member states report that the personal situation, self-confidence and employability of the workers concerned had clearly improved thanks to the assistance and services provided, even though they did not always find new work immediately.”