politicians shouldn't make tech-related predictions
doing some research for a column i'm writing for this friday's irish times today. came across this great quote from back in 1999 when apple had just announced that it was shedding 450 jobs in cork as it outsourced imac production to an lg electronics plant in wales. at that point employment at the plant had fallen to 500.
"The Minister of State for Enterprise, Trade and Employment admitted in the Dail yesterday that "frankly, we will not see the previous big level of jobs again" in the Apple plant in Cork. But Mr Tom Kitt said the Government would do everything possible to expand the firm's employment potential."
of course apple now employs around 1200 bodies in cork and handles the ipod supply chain for emea from that operation. cold comfort to those who have recently lost jobs at motorola, alcatel-lucent, mpo and other irish-based tech firms that have shed jobs this year, but a clear reminder that the media, commentators and politicians should keep an eye on the big picture.
Of course then we have Micheál Martin talking about "VM Software and their 300 jobs in software development".
Two errors in one sentence by a local Minister. Impressive stuff when it's actually VMWare and they are Tech Support jobs.
Posted by: Conor O'Neill | March 14, 2007 at 12:27 AM