US electronics giant Motorola, which employs 1,600 in Ireland, is expected to create another 120 jobs at a new semiconductor design centre in Cork. The new jobs will come on stream over the next three years as part of a £5.3 million investment by the company. The design centre will be built beside its manufacturing plant at Mahon to provide technologically complex designs for use throughout Motorola's worldwide operations.
Most of the new jobs will be for experienced graduates, mainly semi-conductor design engineers, according to Motorola. It expects to begin recruiting the first 20 people for the new venture immediately.
The new investment is due to be announced today. Motorola already employs 300 people at its Cork-based European Software Centre, the bulk of whom are software engineers. This facility was expanded last year to carry out software development and support programmes for analogue cellular technology and GSM telecommunications systems. The software developed here is used in Motorola cellular networks worldwide, including Russia, China, India, Germany, the US and the UK.
The investment is being undertaken with the support of IDA Ireland and the new design centre is expected to become fully established within a relatively short period.
Motorola's semiconductor products sector is the largest US-based supplier of semiconductor solutions and is one of the leading companies in the design of microelectronics for communications, computing and consumer products. The company, like others in the high-tech sector, has reported difficult trading conditions. Earlier this month it reported sharply lower than expected profits. It had issued a profits warning to investors about the likely impact of the weakness of the south-east Asian currencies on the company's earnings earlier this year. Its first-quarter results issued this month showed a four per cent increase in sales to $6.9 billion (£5 billion) but a 44 per cent drop in profits to $180 million.
The figures were issued along with a second profits warning, with the company cautioning that second quarter earnings could be more than 45 per cent lower than analysts forecasts and that sales would be lower than in the same period last year.
Motorola has said it would be trying to cut costs throughout its semiconductor operations in a bid to stem the drop in profits but has insisted that this exercise would not have any obvious implications for its Irish-based businesses. The company's problems are mainly related to the microprocessor market.
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