The scale of the possible job losses at the Apple Computer plant in Cork and at the Motorola facility at Swords, Co Dublin, is still uncertain. Amid reports of 600 job losses (100 permanent and 500 temporary positions) both the Tanaiste, Ms Harney, and the IDA have launched a strong rearguard action to minimise the possible impact. The Tanaiste is scheduled to meet Apple executives in the US later this month. The reports suggest that Apple is anxious to relocate its labour-intensive personal computer board (PCB) manufacturing business to a low-wage economy like Singapore in the Far East. Apple, itself, is refusing to make any comment, describing the reports as "speculative". The situation at Motorola is not dissimilar: 400 mostly temporary jobs, all of them involving low-skill work in the assembly of radio equipment are said to be in jeopardy - although there has been no official announcement.
The threatened job losses are a reminder of the global nature of the computer business. Multinational companies like Apple and Motorola have the flexibility to switch locations swiftly to avail of lower labour costs and this State, which is a high labour economy by international standards, cannot always compete. Inevitably, some will see the threatened job losses as a straw in the wind; a sign that the surge in hi-tech employment, the main springboard for our remarkable economic growth, may be at an end. That might be a misreading of the current situation. The threatened job losses at both Apple and Motorola primarily involve low-skill and temporary employment. Apple is one of the few remaining companies in Ireland to have a large-scale assembly unit. By contrast, the great majority of new jobs in the booming computer sector in Ireland require a high skills base.
It is also important to underline how Apple continues to see the Cork plant as a integral part of its European operation. The company may be restructuring and rationalising worldwide but its commitment to Cork, where it is the biggest single employer in the city, has rarely been questioned. Indeed, some analysts believe that the proposed rationalisation will serve to strengthen the company's remaining operations in Ireland.
In truth, the IDA is probably resigned to a significant number of job losses in the labour-intensive sector of the computer business. The authority continued to concentrate its fire on the hi-tech, hi-skills sector; by some estimates, these now account for over 70 per cent of all employment in the sector. This strategy is clearly working. Last year over half of the record 15,000 jobs created by the IDA in foreign-assisted companies were in the hi-tech and electronic sector. To date, the IDA has managed to attract virtually all of the major players in the computer sector to Ireland and it has managed to secure a very large slice of total US investment in Ireland. It is to be hoped that job losses can be avoided in Cork and in Swords. But we must also look to the wider picture and place events in some kind of perspective. Globalisation means that Ireland will, inevitably, suffer some pain as labour-intensive work takes flight to the Far East. But there has also be a great deal of gain, for which the IDA, in particular, deserves great credit.