Careers and Jobs

According to breaking news reports it is expected that 130 of jobs will be cut at US company Xilinx. Xilinx makes programmable microchips that can be programmed for use in all types of electronic systems.

The Xilinx Jobs will be cut at the Citywest Business Campus in Dublin.
Staff at the company are meeting with management today when it is expected company developments will be outlined.

Xilinx employ 400 staff in Citywest as Dublin is the European Headquarters. 130 staff represents a significant part of the workforce.

Xilinx operates an advanced R&D, operations and engineering centre in Dublin. It is expected that the testing department will be cut in full with further headcount reductions in support and IT departments.

Xilinx Jobs – 130 jobs expected to go at Xilinx in Dublin

There has been negative jobs news for two counties in Ireland – Donegal & Dublin due to announcement by two major employers IBM & Boston Scientific.

IBM is seeking 120 voluntary redundancies at its plant in Mulhuddart as it moves the manufacturing of high-end computer servers to a base in Singapore. Those workers taking redundancy option are expected to leave by the end of April. This news continues the trend of manufacturing moving from Ireland to cheaper cost base countries.

Boston Scientific has dealt a blow to Donegal. The company plans to move the manufacturing facility from Letterkenny to Galway. The plant employs 120 staff in Donegal and according to the company some of these workers can move to Galway plant.

Celestica Ireland employs 380 at its manufacturing plant in Galway. Celectica is a canadian electronics firm which previously had operations in Dublin. Over the last week working hours have been cut for workers in the plant however a general meeting is due to take place to dicuss the future of the plant. Celestica has been struggling with the economic climate and recently closed a plant in the US with the loss of over 500 jobs.

According to today’s newspapers there could be 100 jobs lost at Molex in Shannon, Co. CLare. 100 of the 400 jobs could see their jobs cut with remaining staff taking salary cuts as a result of cost cutting measures. Molex make electronic, electrical and fibre optic interconnection systems at the Shannon plant. The company held a series of meetings on Tuesday to inform staff of redundancies and other cost-saving plans.

There are fears for the future of about 100 jobs in Limerick as Flextronics investigates cost cutting. Flextronics employs 290 people in the Limerick. The company provides logistics and warehousing services for many companies in the region, including large multinationals like Dell Computers. There have been ongoing talks between unions and management with an announcement expected next week.

Obviously performance at Flextronics is directly impacted by performance at Dell. It is not surprising that Dell is to axe 400 temp workers. Newspapers reported that Dell is to axe at least 400 temporary workers this weekend. The computer manufacturer confirmed that 400 temp staff will be let go in Limerick. This news has increased fears for the 3000 permanent employees

Another blow for electronics was the news that Motorola is cutting 3,000 jobs globally.

Today has seen mixed irish jobs news for Longford. One announcement saw the creation of 140 new jobs for the area BUT another announcement saw the loss of 66 jobs in the area. This means 74 net additional jobs for Longford.

The positive jobs news saw Cameron Ireland announce the creation of 140 new jobs. Cameron Ireland develops technology for oil and gas flow regulation. Cameron’s products include sub-sea chokes and actuators which are designed and manufactured in Longford. Cameron is well established in the region and has been based in Longford since 1978. It employs 220 staff so the news will see the workforce almost double.

The negative jobs news in Longford came from Kimball Electronics that said it would be closing its plant with the loss of 66 jobs. Kimball Electronics provides a variety of services including design, manufacturing and packaging. The company had been making losses in recent months and had tried to sell the facility but failed. Manufacturing will be transferred from Ireland to Poland.

Hopefully many of the employees at Kimball will be able to gain new employment at Cameron but this will depend on the jobs skills match.

Xilinx employ 400 staff at its European HQ in Ireland and 3,800 staff worldwide. These numbers will increase slightly with news of the creation of 20 new jobs in a new Global Customer Engineering Division.

This new division will enable faster delivery of products to market, cost-effectively, and with improved performance. Xilinx’s design function works with many of the top players in the electronics sector to produce programmable devices for a wide range of advanced systems.

This news ends the week on a high. Enjoy the weekend and bring on more positive announcements next week like this one with Xilinx in Ireland.