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.

And yet, it could have been much worse because the people of North Tipperary feared all 500 workers were to lose their jobs in a total factory shutdown. Local business interests were striving yesterday to put a positive face on the new scenario.

The cosmetic and skin care company has been in Nenagh for a quarter of a century.

Unfortunately, the workers learned of the impending job cuts on the internet and not from management. But dismay has given way to relief as the news was not as bad as first anticipated. The cosmetic division, which includes Max Factor, Oil of Olay and Cover Girl, will stay in Nenagh and 220 workers will retain their jobs.

But the economic impact of a swathe of other redundancies will be felt over the next two years as the skin care unit moves to Lodz in Poland, a process expected to be completed by 2009.

For hundreds of families in and around Nenagh today, the glass is either half empty or half full, depending on whether the breadwinner is losing or holding his or her job.

For those staring at the grim prospect of redundancy, the pledge given by Enterprise Minister Micheál Martin, that FÁS would help workers find other employment, has a hollow ring, especially in a region where jobs lost are seldom replaced. With a General Election looming in May, the only thing we can be sure of is that such promises will get louder.

Alarmingly, the Nenagh scenario is reflected across the country. Towns like Fermoy also feel the negative impact of globalisation with 240 jobs at the French company FCI Ireland moving to a lower cost location.

Similarly, the Dublin-based electronics firm Creative Labs is making 230 people redundant in a “restructuring” move to a lower cost location. And 480 people at a revamped Pfizer operation in Cork are also facing an uncertain future. Some 350 workers at Motorola in Cork are expected to learn their fate within days. From Waterford to Donegal, Bray, Carlow, Macroom, and Roscommon, people are bracing themselves for hundreds of job losses.

On a brighter note, 76 small Irish-grown companies have been identified as having significant potential for growth. Ironically, they are rooted in manufacturing, and between them have a turnover of €110 million.

However, any lingering doubts about the worrying economic conditions were dispelled by a recent national competitiveness report showing that 32,000 jobs were lost in the manufacturing sector over the last five years.

With foreign firms accounting for 92% of Irish exports, productivity on a downward curve, and inflation running at almost twice the European average, the outlook is anything but bright.

Green Party enterprise spokesman Eamon Ryan hits the nail on the head when he warns that the jobs being lost in Nenagh will not be easily replaced through additional foreign direct investment.

As people in North Tipperary’s unemployment black-spot are only too aware, political promises are easily made. But solving Ireland’s growing jobs crisis will be anything but easy.