09 Jan 2009
Dell Closes Ireland Plant

The folks in Poland better enjoy it - they'll be too expensive in another decade or so. Considering the distance moved, and the directions (east and west), at this rate manufacturing should return to the US in about 50 years...

Wide Angle writes in with a PBS report on tough economic news from Ireland: Dell announced that it will relocate its manufacturing plant in Limerick, Ireland to Lodz, Poland. "Dell's announcement... is a severe blow to the Irish economy, which has been hit hard and fast by the global economic crisis. Dell is Ireland's second-largest corporate employer and the country's largest exporter. Nineteen hundred shift workers will lose their jobs. ...Dell's closing is not a result of the economic downturn, but of a pattern all too familiar in the United States — corporations' perennial search for cheaper labor. Since 2000 several companies, such as Procter & Gamble, Intel, Gateway, and NEC Electronics, have moved manufacturing jobs from Ireland to China, Eastern Europe, and elsewhere. When Poland joined the European Union in 2004, it became an attractive place for companies to set up manufacturing plants. ... However, Ireland has managed to maintain and attract... 'knowledge-intensive jobs.' Google's European headquarters are based in Dublin, and Facebook announced late last year that they would locate their international headquarters there. But the overall economic picture for Ireland is bleak."

(link) [Slashdot]

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