Manufacturing decline - Promises won’t solve jobs crisis

WITH the manufacturing sector in steep decline, the loss of 280 more jobs, almost half the workforce at the Procter and Gamble plant in Nenagh, is a psychological blow to the Irish economy and a body blow to a region where more than 1,200 workers have been made redundant in recent times.

In another shock development yesterday, Bourns Electronics is to close its manufacturing plant in Cork, with the loss of 80 jobs to Hungary and Mexico. Unfortunately, this is globalisation in action.

Following a year-long cost-cutting review of its European business, the jobs being axed in Nenagh are being shifted to an expanded operation in Poland’s lower-wage regime.