Irish Examiner view: Irish workers affected by a downside of global capitalism

Jobs being lost in Cork may be relocated to parts of the world where the work can be done more cheaply

Blizzard Entertainment's home at the Atrium Business Centre in Blackpool, Cork. Some say the layoffs are occurring due to a 'rush to the bottom' to employ staff to do the same job more cheaply elsewhere. Picture: Larry Cummins

News of layoffs among technical staff at Blizzard in Cork, the video game company owned by Microsoft, is a telling reminder that it is not only digital experts who can be nomadic. The jobs themselves can be peripatetic too.

The firm is part of the Activision Blizzard group whose premier product is Call of Duty, the best-selling first-person shooter game series with hundreds of millions of copies sold worldwide.