The Workers’ Party in Cork have said that the region is turning into a “jobs desert”, with accumulated job losses in the city and surrounding area in the past six months now running into the thousands, not including the many construction jobs lost recently.

Cork Workers’ Party chairman Ted Tynan said that the latest job losses at Swissco in Little Island yesterday, the announcement that 320 jobs are to go at Tyco in Bishopstown and major concerns of job losses amongst workers in other companies such as Beamish & Crawford adds to a litany of such announcements since start of the summer.

Mr. Tynan said that there were no longer many big flagship employers such as Fords or Dunlops whose closures in the 1980s was a symbol of the recession of that era, but there were lots more smaller concerns shedding jobs which cumulatively represent the same type of blow to the region. 

“In the last few months there have been job losses at Pfizer, Motorola, Hormann, Boston Scientific, Howley Civil Engineering, RR Donnelly and many more, not to mention the cancellation of the major Amgen project for Carrigtwohill.  Cork is once again becoming a jobs desert and queues at employment exchanges are getting longer with 25,000 people signing on in the city and county”.

“It seems that the present government is without any ideas on the creation of sustainable, long-term jobs and many have accepted that this idea is something of the past.  The Workers’ Party does not accept this.  We believe that there must be a policy of full employment and the best way to achieve this is to invest in our own resources and to stop relying on multinationals who regard this country as a soft touch, come for a few years and fly away for richer pickings in the developing world.  We must create those jobs ourselves”, said Ted Tynan.

Issued Wednesday, 24th September 2008

Updated Thursday, 25th September following revelation that Tyco redundancies are to be 320 not 200 as previously expected.