26 October 2006
Shorts job losses larger than expected...
Angela Eagle tells the BBC that they did not tell her about the job losses at Bombardier when she visited last week on a trade mission to Canada. However, it seems, there were strong intimations of this as early as 8th August. The jobs are not being cut so much as being shifted to Mexico. It is a pattern we might expect to see repeated, as lower end functions get pushed out to take advantage of the cheaper labour costs of the developing world. The question is whether NI can follow the example of the Republic and the south east of England, and move its private sector up the food chain?
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3 comments:
Hate to be a nit picker but it's Maria not Angela. Angela's her sister!
Can NI compete in the global economy you ask - yes it can. The day after the Shorts announcement Citigroup announced 200 extra jobs in their new technology centre - this combined with Northbrooks 500 counterracts Shorts losses. These are graduate and above jobs.
But of course job losses are sexier than job creation and so get more press (blog ?) space.
"Canadian aircraft maker Bombardier Inc., meanwhile, is relocating all electrical wire harness work for its planes to Querétaro from Montreal, Toronto, and Wichita, and shifting fuselage assembly to Mexico from Belfast. If all goes according to plan, the Canadian company will be assembling entire aircraft in Mexico in 7 to 10 years. To win the Bombardier investment, Mexico even pledged to build a new aerospace university nearby. "We're impressed by the government's commitment," says Réal Gervais, a Bombardier vice-president who heads the Mexico operations."
More - May 22, 2006
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