IDA concern on job losses

MULTINATIONAL EMPLOYERS will shed jobs as the recession continues and individual industries consolidate, IDA Ireland chief Barry O’Leary warned yesterday.

Addressing the joint Oireachtas Committee on Enterprise, Trade and Employment yesterday, Mr O’Leary said that the IDA plans to attract enough multinational investment to the Republic to create 105,000 new jobs by 2014.

However, responding to committee member Deirdre Clune TD, Mr O’Leary warned that circumstances will force some multinationals to cut jobs. He pointed out that the pharmaceutical industry, a big investor in the Republic, is in a consolidation phase.

“High-cost locations, if some of them are in Ireland, will be under definite pressure,” he said. “Some companies will be fine, but we are aware of some that are under pressure.”

He explained that some multi-national-owned plants here had allowed costs to grow and could have difficulty competing if they did not tackle this. He added that even as consolidation continued in this industry, the companies involved were looking for new products to bring to market.

Mr O’Leary said IDA Ireland would target key areas of research, development and innovation, and said that trends in the industry would create opportunities for manufacturing services.

Mr O’Leary also said the Republic’s reputation suffered as the international media honed in on the fallout from the banking crisis and property market collapse.

However, he pointed out that the fundamentals for foreign direct investment had not changed, and said the agency has since launched a series of marketing and publicity campaigns to highlight these facts to the international business community.

The IDA’s strategy document, published earlier this month, highlights areas where the Republic scores highly in surveys of international competitiveness, including the availability of skilled labour, corporate taxes and productivity.