Cork plant closure sees 138 jobs lost
16-05-2008
by Emmet Ryan

Hormann Electronics in Blackrock, Cork, is to close, resulting in the loss of 138 jobs.

The closure follows the appointment of receivers to the company last week but efforts to save the plant failed. This is the third major set of IT job losses to hit the region in the past 18 months, with the closure of Bourns Electronics and redundancies at Motorola.

Hormann Electronics has been based in the Cork City region for 30 years and was a leading-edge firm in the circuit board market when it opened. The plant's main function was assembling and testing circuit boards.

Recent years have seen the plant struggle to cope with competition from Asia and Eastern Europe. Plants in these regions can perform the same work as the Blackrock facility at a fraction of the cost.

David Gilbert and Liam Dowdall of BDO Simpson Xavier were appointed to Hormann Electronics as joint receivers last week after the company got into financial difficulty.

The receivers conducted a review of the firm and tried to salvage some of the jobs. Their efforts failed however and workers were told on Friday that the plant will shut by the end of the month. Of the 138 staff, 117 workers are to finish up on Friday while the other 21 will be gone by the end of May.

Local politicians have expressed sympathy with those that lost their jobs on Friday. "My thoughts today are with those who are to lose their jobs, and their families," said Ciaran Lynch, Labour TD for Cork South Central.

"They now face a time of great uncertainty when mortgages and household bills will still have to be met. For most of those affected this is their first experience of unemployment, so the impact at a personal level of losing their job, can not be overestimated," said Lynch.

He called on Mary Coughlan, the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, to take measures to safeguard the future of other jobs in the region and in the electronics sector as a whole. Lynch also called for moves to be made to help those that lost jobs to find new positions elsewhere.

"We now need targeted measures to address the downturn in the economy. These measures should include a major programme of re-skilling for people who are losing jobs," said Lynch.