This article is from page 4 of the 2011-10-04 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 4 JPG
THE announcement that Shannonbased technology support firm Sykes Enterprises is to shed up to 75 of its works will bring to over 800 the number job losses in the Shannon Free Zone over the past two years as Clare’s unemployment levels reach crisis level.
The jobs losses at the call service company that employs over 50,000 worldwide represents the third time in the last three years that the company that it has sought to downscale its operations here.
The latest round of job losses for Shannon brings to 855 the number that have gone over the past two years – a domino effect that has seen some of the Free Zone’s leading em- ployers shed sizeable numbers of its workforce. The darkest period in Shannon’s jobs history was started in July 2009 when Element Six, formerly De Beers Industrial Diamond Ltd, announced a closure of its Shannon operation with the loss of 370 jobs.
The company blamed “the high cost of operating in Ireland” for its decision to end manufacturing at its plant that was one of the Free Zone’s biggest employers since being established there in 1963.
In October 2009 telecoms firm Technotree shed 80 jobs at its Shannon plant, while in the same month GE Money let 50 of its staff go. A further 207 jobs were lost on ‘Black Thursday’ in October 2010 – 107 at Shannon Aerospace and 100 at scientific publisher Elsevier, while 80 jobs were lost at Shannon insurance firm Lloyds Banking Group in February of this year.
Figures secured by The Clare People reveal that in 2010 there was a net loss of 461 jobs at the Shannon Free Zone, while from a five-year period from 2003 to 2008 there were the figure stood of 250 net job losses.
These contrasting figures hammer home the extent of the hemmorahage of jobs from the county’s flagship industrial base, with the latest round of job cuts coming in the same week as government figures revealed that 15 jobs had been created in the county from the Dell European Globalisation Fund that was established for the region in 2009.
Sykes established in the Shannon Free Zone in 1987 and at its peak of operations employed 380 at the facility, which is one of the company’s 80 global centres.
Sykes’ biggest growth phase came in 2006/2007 when it was one of the fastest growing companies in the mid-west region, with the company’s general manager for Europe, Colin Mitchell saying at the announcement of 100 new jobs, “Sykes Shannon has invested several million in equipment; furniture and fittings and leasehold improvement over the past ten years. This expansion, whilst increasing head count, will also provide an additional revenue flow to the Irish economy in terms of employer/employee contributions, and local spend on professional services, telecommunications and general domestic expenditure.”