Electronic jobs vulnerable to market trends

IRELAND'S electronics sector remains too vulnerable to fluctuations in world demand for computer equipment and job losses could be the result, according to the head of the State's largest electronics research group.

"It is unwise to consider that manufacturing plants alone, no matter how hitech they are, represent a stable entity in the long term," according to Prof Gerry Wrixon, director of the National Microelectronics Research Centre (NMRC) in Cork.

He was speaking in Dublin yesterday at the presentation of the centre's annual report, which highlighted its highest research income at £5,031,000 during 1996, a 25 per cent increase on the previous year. Turnover was £7.5 million, with income derived from research work with industry and from participation in EU programmes.

Prof Wrixon also announced a change in strategy for the centre with the creation of a new long term research initiative meant to attract contracts from the largest microelectronics companies.

"Research and new product development is such an integral part of the global electronics activity that unless the industry here is involved in it, we cannot truly say that it will be able to cope with inherent and inevitable change," he warned.

"It is not an option, I feel, to pick and choose at will, in other words to say that we are interested in the manufacturing but not in the research, because in a fast develop ing industry, such as microelectronics, this is a noncreditable short term approach."

Unless incoming manufacturers, including the largest firms, can be encouraged to place at least part of their product and process development cycles in Ireland "our electronics industry will remain much too vulnerable to fluctuations in this rapidly changing sector", he said.

The centre is linked to University College, Cork and in 1996 employed 220 people. It received £1.475 million funding from the Department of Enterprise and Employment.

Over half its research contracts were via EU projects and were worth £2.663 million in 1996.

Direct industry contracts earned £1.603 million and total research earnings were £5.031 million. Research earnings in 1995 were £5.276 million and turnover in that year was £6.133 million.

The NMRC ranks as the largest single research centre in Ireland and is among the top five largest microelectronics centres in Europe.

The Minister for Enterprise and Employment, Mr Bruton, attended the launch at the Royal Irish Academy yesterday.

Prof Wrixon also announced that the centre would take a "new strategic direction" by starting its own long term research programme. It is to hire 10 post doctoral researchers a year for the next five years to work on "fundamental microelectronic research".