Dell: Job losses in 2009

It happens every year, around this time ( or at least it has for the past few years ). Yes, Dell have announced - oh sorry, they haven't - that they are pulling out of Ireland. Actually the 'Wall Street Journal' set the ball rolling late last year, when they stated that Dell would wind up it's Irish operation in 2009.

Since then the Irish media / politicians / workers have been asking loads of questions but getting no answers. As for the politicians, some of our finest ( ie: not very fine ) even went to the trouble of going to Texas recently to talk to Dell. Whether they managed to fit in some pre - Christmas shopping or not can not be confirmed at this time.

Dell just keep saying the same thing publicly: "We constantly review our operations ( blah blah blah )". The latest interesting take on this non - episode episode is that 'senoir business figures' have come together in Limerick - the territory in which the main ( threatened / not threatened? ) plant is situated, and devised a plan for 'local outsourcing' to save the 2,000 jobs at stake ( or not at stake? ).

Now I am no whizz on outsourcing, but I fail to see how the nice peeps of Limerick in Ireland can compete with Warsaw - or Bangalore. In fact Dell have been telling us how much they love us for the past 2 years while they build a gi - normous plant in Poland. All that construction was just a coincidence! After all, Limerick is the "Jewel of our European Operations", according to Dell.

Who knows what's going on, or how this will pan out in the long run. One can only look to the past few years, and what has happened then. A lot of innuendo comes from Dell, the IDA ( Industrial Development Authority ) get involved, and the whole threat goes away. And it usually happens around Christmas. Let's hope that if the IDA strike another sweet deal that they will not tell us all "the terms are none of your business" like they did the last time.

No one screws quite like Dell!