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Dell Closes Ireland Plant; 2nd Largest Employer
Wide Angle writes in with a PBS report on tough economic news from Ireland: Dell announced that it will relocate its manufacturing plant in Limerick, Ireland to Lodz, Poland. "Dell's announcement... is a severe blow to the Irish economy, which has been hit hard and fast by the global economic crisis. Dell is Ireland's second-largest corporate employer and the country's largest exporter. Nineteen hundred shift workers will lose their jobs. ...Dell's closing is not a result of the economic downturn, but of a pattern all too familiar in the United States — corporations' perennial search for cheaper labor. Since 2000 several companies, such as Procter & Gamble, Intel, Gateway, and NEC Electronics, have moved manufacturing jobs from Ireland to China, Eastern Europe, and elsewhere. When Poland joined the European Union in 2004, it became an attractive place for companies to set up manufacturing plants. ... However, Ireland has managed to maintain and attract... 'knowledge-intensive jobs.' Google's European headquarters are based in Dublin, and Facebook announced late last year that they would locate their international headquarters there. But the overall economic picture for Ireland is bleak."
There once was a man from Nantucket...
Perhaps Eire should have factored in that companies agile and willing enough to relocate once to Ireland would likely be sufficiently agile and willing to move to follow the sun again.
Nullius in verba
Frankly, i'm a little worried about all the typecasting in the tags for this article.
You guys are just asking to get bombed by the IRA!
As long as it is cheap.
I have no problem with them finding the cheapest labor they can find, or building robots for all I care.
I suppose it is only reasonable. Now all these Poles who already work there will have much a much shorter commute. Good for them.
I would like to die like my grandfather did - sleeping. And not screaming in terror, like his passengers.
AOL was in Dublin for a long time, and they moved to Waterford, and then Waterford lost out. Soon the only tech place in Dublin will be eBay - if they count?
We the consumer, demand cheaper priced products, why should we be surprised when manufacturers look for methods of reducing their costs? You don't exactly see them firing up manufacturing plants in Tokyo or Manhattan.
It's a Global Economy, get used to it.
That's fine as long as you have a job to pay for it. If all the manufacturing and knowledge based jobs end up in the cheaper locations then can the Western Economies keep going. I know that many economists say that it is the beginning of the service economy, and we can all be rich in the west by buying and providing services for each other but I am rather skeptical. If a whole country consists of PR teams, lawyers, restaurant owners and so on can they really "generate" enough money to be able to buy their "real" things from cheap overseas sources?
Is it really the case that a company that hires only 4300 people is the *second* largest corporate employer in Ireland? That 1900 people losing their jobs is a "severe blow" to the economy of an entire country? The population of Ireland is somewhere around 6 million - what does every *else* do there?
wow that will increase the customer experience....
Hable Poland?
I realize that this sucks for Ireland but Poland is in far worse shape and needs the jobs just as badly if not more.
What rhymes with Limerick?
...
he had such a limp dick
he sold plants in Limerick
and sales went right straight to Hell.
The Irish lost their recipe for ice.
The fact is, since China has the unfair advantage of near-slave labor, the rest of the world as a whole needs to have stiff import tariffs to equalize this imbalance.
This really shouldn't be completely about the "world economy" and if it can be done cheaper in China, "why not"? It is completely fair to take into account other factors such as China's complete disregard for workers rights and environmental issues, not to mention truth in labeling with regards to all the poisons they put in food products.
Make 'em pay, it's the only way to get their attention.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
1900 doesn't sound like a lot in respect to being the second largest employer. I suppose not knowing the population of Ireland off the top of my head, I can't say for certain (I just looked, 6 Million). So I guess I'm still a little surprised that 1900 is the second largest employer. Am I wrong that that seems surprising?
On the side of people out of a job/paycheck, 1900 is terrible.
I will shred my adversaries. Pull their eyes out just enough to turn them towards their mewing, mutilated faces. Illyria
I'm Flamebait whilst the Nantucket guy is funny? Riight
Scares them, doesn't it. But they didn't learn; you don't put all your potatoes in one basket.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
That was my first thought. It costs money to build a new plant and move the equipment over there.
This could work well for Dell. The average wage is $850 a week in Ireland versus $157 a week in Poland. For two thousand employees, that's a $million a week saved in labour alone. Whatever the costs are for building a new plant and training new workers, they should be made back in a year or two.
Sources on wage figures:
http://www.cso.ie/statistics/indearnings.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3442329.stm
The 10 year discount is up. That's why they are moving, and Dell isn't the only corporation doing this. Ireland has a low corporate tax, and discounts it even further for the first 10 years a corporation operates there.
There once was an old man of Esser,
Whose employment prospects grew lesser and lesser,
It at last grew so small
He had no job skills at all,
And now he's a college professor.
This is economic development, and is good news, although I appreciate that it won't seem like that if you are one of the people laid off.
The reason Dell were in Ireland in the first place is because Ireland was the cheap labour centre of Europe. As they've developed, it's no longer true and their economy has been replaced by a knowledge economy. In many ways, cheap-ass manufacturing leaving your country because the labour is too cheap is a complement. Next, the same cycle gets to happen to Poland. Everyone moves low-skill factories there, the place develops, and then the staff get expensive so Dell will go somewhere cheaper again.
They mean DELL is the second largest external company to employ people in Ireland ..
davecb5620@gmail.com
Ireland has been the strong argument lately as to why the US needs to stop taxing business so much. How's this crow taste?
This is just more evidence to the idea that companies will always game the system because there will always be some country out there that provides them the opportunity. Should the US really restructure its tax base to compete with the ever expanding global market, or should we just admit that we've got more priorities to take care of than some smaller nations that can make these deals and just go about our usual routine?
I think Obama mentioned that he wants to yank tax breaks away from companies that export jobs, and give breaks to companies that create jobs here in the U.S.
That's a good first start. But how about we start putting huge tarrifs on shit that should be made in the U.S. but is coming from Poland? Send a clear message that cheap labor isn't the best way to make money.
Do you think the Dell execs are fans of the Witcher series? That is just now making it to the US in translated form. Coincidence? I think not.
Oops, I forgot folks on here are probably all Tolkien loyalists. *sways hand* This is not the flamebait you're looking for...
There once was a man from Nantucket
Whose dick was so long he could suck it.
While wiping his chin,
He said with a grin,
"If my ear were a cunt, I could fuck it."
--- and here is the extended version of the original ---
There once was a man from Nantucket
Who kept all his cash in a bucket.
But his daughter, named Nan,
Ran away with a man
And as for the bucket, Nantucket.
part 2:
But he followed the pair to Pawtucket,
The man and the girl with the bucket;
And he said to the man,
He was welcome to Nan,
But as for the bucket, Pawtucket.
part 3:
Then the pair followed Pa to Manhasset,
Where he still held the cash as an asset,
But Nan and the man
Stole the money and ran,
And as for the bucket, Manhasset.
Those companies willing to go to the ends of the Earth for their employees usually find they can pay them a tenth of the salary.
I can't help but wonder how Dell would react if Ireland banned Dell computers. You know, this kind of game works both ways.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
RTA for once. What shocked me most is the fact that a company with only 4300 (local) employees is the second largest corporate employer. Wow ..... even my local ISP here employs already more people.
So, either that was a Washington Post journalist missing out one way or another (has happened before :), otherwise you start wondering.
Browsers shouldn't have a back button!! It's all about going forward...
Dell's closing is not a result of the economic downturn, but of a pattern all too familiar in the United States -- corporations' perennial search for cheaper labor.
Sure, I guess, but if this keeps happening, who will have enough money to buy what corporations are making? Maybe every employee should be paid in stock instead of cash, that way they are on the same footing as the investor?
so, the only hope for survival is if you give us more than we had to start with before we 'lost' it, & let us spend it like we did before, except more.
Now fook off, ya gobshite!
Once in Ireland there was Dell
Where many once worked, but that's all gone to hell.
For Dell is moving,
and thus proving,
You can screw everyone and still do well.
A number of years ago I read an essay about countries and states offering concessions to multi-national corporations in order to get manufacturing jobs.
The executive is this:
Companies will take what they can, exploit all the benefits, and when it makes financial sense to move they will. This "cut throat" capitalism will lead to utter destruction because all it does is drive down wages world wide.
Over time, some people in 3rd world nations seem to get less poor because they have "jobs." The previously better off economies, however, deteriorate because the working class income deteriorates. As the economic powerhouses like U.S.A, Europe, and Japan start to falter, the world wide market starts to falter, and companies start to close factories. As the factories close, the working class has even less money causing more factories to fail. Eventually, even the 3rd world factories don't make sense and the previously "less poor" return to their original poverty level, except that the world wide economy has been destroyed. All the capital ends up in the hands of a very very small number of people.
I'm kinda worried that it wasn't just an over imaginative worst case scenario.
According to Eurostat unemployment in Poland in November (6.5%) was lower than in Ireland (7.9%).
http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat
Polish economy has been booming in recent years.
To anyone who jumps on the sensational bandwagon that this is just like Western countries relocating their manufacturing facilities to China, you obviously know nothing about European politics or its economy.
Okay, sure this stinks for the local Irish economy, but citizens in EU countries have freedom of movement. So, big deal. This is no different from a manufacturer relocating from the Northeast U.S. to the South for the lower labor costs. Workers in the EU have the right to move to where the work is. Also, companies in the EU have the freedom to move their operations or "capital."
Make love, not reality television.
Fruit of the Loom gave Ireland the shaft years ago, and that was when the economy was booming.
Of course, there's plenty of young Irish workers who have no idea what a recession is really like.
Staying at home, taking our jobs.
Dell shut down all their plants in America and shipped them to China. Your plant is remaining in Europe. Personally, I have quit buying Dell.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
If there is one lesson to be learned from this economic downturn: it is just stupid to be a worker in the modern economy. Instead, you should be in ownership or upper management. Kids, adjust your career plans now.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Hey guys I am from Poland and guess what? I can more or less speak english and even know how to post on Slashdot.
And there's more. We do embedded software and hardware here, we know Linux and it's been that way for years already.
So it's not different compared to where you live. And as for dell, easy come easy go. They won't stay here longer than 3-4 years and eventualy will continue moving east.
Thus, the fact that we have a service-based economy is not in and of itself a problem, provided that our services are sufficiently valued in world markets to purchase the manufactured goods we need as well as the other necessities and wants of life. It is a problem ONLY if our skills, or the products that are created using those skills, are no longer sufficiently valuable to earn us the kind of living we want, in which case, the obvious remedy (which scales up) is to learn new skills.
You make it sound so simple, as if every time the creation of products and the required skills/services is exported three new skills/services which are highly valued on world markets spring up in place of the ones you just lost to a country where it is easier to mistreat your employees. The valuable skills/services that are being exported from Europe and the US to places where they will be performed for less money are being replaced by new skills/services at lower rate than they are being lost. While there will always be a certain number of people here in the west that will be able to acquire/create new skills/services as the old ones are exported and they will always be able to use these new skills/services to produce products highly valued in world markets, a large segment of the population won't be able to do that. The inevitable consequence of this is that these people will have to drastically lower their standard of living, that last phenomenon is also known as poverty.
Proctor and Gamble did not just move manufacturing over. They completely outsourced their IT (allegedly 100% of it) and demanded that at least 60% of IT work should be cheaper offshore support. Ironically the last I checked this was going incredibly well for them. Not so great for the people who were canned over the years of course.
Right. They've hardly touched Africa yet.
Best Slashdot Co
Ok, maybe that's a little blase, but there are two points that have to be considered here:
1. Ireland is not nor never has been a manufacturing country. Sure there have be some manufacturing companies such as Dell, but essentially Ireland is a combination of a strong agricultural and tourism in rural areas with technological and financial bias in the urban areas. Dell is nice to have, and I feel sorry for those that have lost their jobs in Limerick - but it is not a core industry, even if it is a core employer.
2. Ireland has been growing at an incredible rate over the past 10 years, far faster than anyone could possibly hope to adapt to. Looking at the government's actions over this period, they have acted like lottery winners, squandering the growth to create an ever-burgeoning public sector. Coincidentally, the National Competitiveness Council in Ireland established that our competitiveness has deteriorated by 32% over this period. This loss as well as others is a good wake up call - and an opportunity to regroup and establish a firmer foundation for the future.
It is also important to note that Dell is not leaving Ireland - they are closing their manufacturing plant. Ireland's corporate tax rate is still extremely attractive to US companies.
Genesis 1:32 And God typed
Does Michael Dell play dirty tricks
When he's handing out jobs to the Micks?
"No," he says with a laugh,
"We just fuck 'em all daft
"Then we close up the plant in Limerick."
Breakfast served all day!
Have you heard of high and low pressure systems? Nature abhors even a partial vacuum; systems like to equalize. Water, air, and even money will flow to where the low spots are. India was once a "low spot" not so long ago, but now it's equalized a bit and so the flow has shifted. Closer to home, Ireland was a low spot, too, but apparently now not low enough. Outsourcing is a natural descriptive phenomenon.
I'm rather surprised that Dell chose Poland rather than, say, Moldova, though.
http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055433051
^^ There, fixed it for you.
Have a look at this: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/specials/honey/
Do you think China has come clean on this because of their own will?
I'm surprised the Chinese are still making honey. They have managed to wipe out several species of pollinators over vast sections of their country by grossly overusing pesticides. Uncontrolled industrial pollution didn't help either. There are places in China where farmers have to pollinate fruit trees with paint brushes. To be fair to the Chinese the USA is fast on it's way to suffering the same fate for a lot of the same reasons. Neither government seems to care.
In New Jersey and Oregon it's illegal (with some exceptions) to pump your own gas, an attendant does it for you.
I have never seen the point of creating jobs like this, and I suspect that despite the local job creation, it is probably bad for the economy. but it is truly hard to create 100s of millions of high-end jobs.
If we are successful in continuing to promote the USA as a global leader, worthy of "management class" wages compared to other nationalities; WTF are the rest of the population going to do that lack these high-end skills ?
Nullius in verba
Like Bush, Micheal Dell did not forget Poland.
Thank you I'll be here all week.
The basic problem is that "free trade" never is.
"Free trade" concerning commodities that are easily made (or grown) in an area, like tropical fruit towards northern climates, is one thing.
"Free trade" based on paying workers shit wages, or based on the fact that one country (*coughmexshitcocough*) has absolutely crappy evironmental protection laws while their neighbors don't, doesn't - it temporarily drives down "costs" while ensuring that the environment gets ruined and poverty is taken advantage of.
The solution is "fair trade" instead - place tariffs on any and all imported goods from countries whose labor protection and environmental laws are inferior to our own, such that the cost to produce them there and them import is the same (or better yet, slightly more expensive) as doing the production either here, or in a country with proper worker and environmental protection standards. If the USA/Canada/European countries would do that, then the countries with shit worker protection and environmental laws will have to fall in line and we can actually get things addressed.
As for Globalization, well USA is the current global top-dog expecting many other parts of the world to behave as it sees fit. We're probably a long way down this track already.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Why are the Irish always getting a raw deal?
If everyone is in ownership or upper management, how do you get any work done? We need people to do the grunt work, or the owners and management will have nothing to live off of, as they don't actually produce anything - they simply guide the real workforce. You need to stop discouraging people from rising above their lot as proels, or you'll have to go get a real job.
Disclaimer: I am owner and management, but since it's a small business I spend about 80% of my time doing actual work (engineering) as well...when I'm not surfing slashdot.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Bad examples serve a purpose.
Let the 'unskilled laborers' fight over the shit jobs that are uneconomical to move overseas.
The wage for those jobs will naturally be low.
Life's a bitch. Thanks for playing...better luck next reincarnation.
The fair consequence of never developing skills is subsistence living.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
"The Economist" had an interesting article relative to this a while back: http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12676787
Some interesting tidbits:
"BY THE best guesses of Polish diplomats, a couple of thousand Poles lived in Ireland at the start of 2004, including 200 emigres left from the second world war. Three years later Ireland was home to more than a quarter of a million Poles, according to consular estimates."
"A torrent of EU regional aid is about to hit the ex-communist countries: across eastern and central Europe there are plans for new airports, fast trains and motorways. Poland has stadiums to build for the European football championship in 2012. The Polish and Lithuanian governments are actively trawling for workers in Ireland."
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
I always check where stuff is made before i buy, and Made in China products are always ruled out
Potatoe, dummy! If your going to use it, atleast spell it right.
Well basically.... YES !
I'm not lazy on the weekends... I'm just Energy Efficent !!
I'm opening a second office in Dublin next year. My first is in New York City. It's breathtakingly easy to have a presence in Ireland, and they make it very well worth one's while to do it.
Any company of any size and any dexterity can have an office in Ireland if they want one. I'm even familiar with a company of a single individual who has an Irish presence so that he can use it to legally wrangle EU clients from the States. (he works in cryptography, so the legalities are complicated)
All Dell has really done is shown everyone that they're incapable of providing decent work at a decent wage.
I think that's Éire in Irish if you want to be extra picky
Waterford, a somewhat iconic Irish brand, had also outsourced some of it's manufacturing to Poland.
Yes we evil Americans have this ridiculous notion that businesses are created for the purpose of making money and not providing jobs to the needy. We invest our time and money in business ventures with the belief that we should receive a return on our investment and not simply to fund social programs. When governments seek to control free enterprise with punitive regulations and confiscatory taxation and labor unions try to ensure mediocrity and job security rather than what's in the best interest of the business, then the businesses leave and find better opportunities elsewhere. This is the economic equivalent of survival of the fittest. You can not force a plant or animal to thrive in an inhospitable environment. It will either move on or die.
Correct, but keep in mind this paradigm does not just apply to unskilled labour. "Skilled" jobs such as programming, tech support, design etc. also naturally seek jurisdictions were labour costs are lower.
Irish government: Yes master?
Corporation: Keep those subsidies coming.
Irish government: Yes master.
On the offchance that you're really this stupid and not just a troll:
That won't work, because it won't be fair from the "unskilled laborer's" point of view. Or, rather, too unfair to tolerate. Living in a real, imperfect society means that people have to tolerate occasional unfairness. But there is a limit to that and pushing people over the limit usually generates a violent reaction.
1900 is nothing for Lodz. Lodz's population is something like 700000 with highest unemployment rate among major Polish cities.
Apart from cheaper labour and government grants there is one more important factor - location...
Lodz is on the crossing of freeways (in construction) connecting Western and Eastern Europe and North and South.
Limerick is closer to the UK/France(slightly)/Spain/Portugal - but all the rest is same distance or closer to Lodz (Russia/Germany/Ukraine/Italy(slightly)) With no need to use ships/planes...
Polish transportation companies are much cheaper due to cheaper labor and gas.
At last - Russian wide railtracks end in Poland - eventually Transsiberian Railway can be used to move stuff from China easily...
Once freeways are built and railways improved post-communist Central Europe is very hard to beat on the logistics side...
I wish there were some type of initiative/referendum that citizens could use to challenge laws, not because they are unconstitutional or otherwise legally invalid, but because they have failed to deliver the results that were promised
Well there is one way but people seem too stupid to utilize it. They'd rather keep voting in the incumbent because "he's done good things and has experience" or just blindly vote for the guy who shares the same party affiliation as them. Those of who are smart enough not to do this have our votes buried by those who aren't or by rigged electoral processes (gerrymandering in the US, I'm sure other countries have their own version).
This is not flamebait. This is rather obviously how he/she sincerely feels about the subject and there is nothing wrong with that. Disagreeing with it, even vehemently, still does not make it flamebait and still does not mean there is anything wrong with it. Flamebait is when the sole purpose of the post is to make people angry and upset and otherwise to get an emotional reaction. That's just not what happened here. Mods, please reverse this. I'm tired of the overall lower quality of moderation lately. Blatant examples like this used to be rare and they are increasingly common. It does not bode well for Slashdot and that's a shame because I really enjoy the site. I'm writing this betting that someone with mod points is tired of it too and willing to show it.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
The operative principle here is that Ireland's corporate tax rate is so low that it encourages companies... oh wait...
One Potato
Many Potatoes
Slashdot, where even the grammar nazis are illiterate !!
violent reaction?
Not really a problem. 'They' are just as unskilled at aiming as everything else. The really unskilled are, in my estimation, less then 20% of the population and would not be missed if they ever did decide to take up arms.
But more basically it's not unfair at all. No skills leading to subsistence living is totally fair. If it was impossible for them to have developed skills that would be unfair. Their are many counterexamples of people with working skills from the most disadvantaged origins so that simply won't fly.
Granted the unskilled will whine 'unfair' but that doesn't mean anything. Those wanting free rides will always whine no matter what.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I don't have a problem with that.
I charge clients extra for fixing messes created by others.
Whenever a client tries to get a price concession out of me by 'talking India' I say go for it guys.
It has paid off well so far (for me anyhow).
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
We were all wondering what happened to Dan Quayle!
"But this one goes to 11!"
Dell clearly doesn't have any clue how severe the backlash from this could be.
Ireland is never going to approve another EU treaty.
One can only hope that Dell execs escape the wrath of unemployed ex-IRA members.
(It's never too late to join the Renaissance)
Funny you should say that's not really a problem. One time in France, the unskilled did just that, and the aristocracy and royalty all met Madame Guillotine's acquaintance.
The "unskilled" shouldn't be so ignored maybe, as much as there should be serious attempts to bring them into the ranks of the "skilled". This is a world-wide issue, not just a local/regional/national one.
@Mindless Drivel: 100% of Twitter posts ever Tweeted.
from wikipedia "The national minimum wage is 8.65 per hour for full time staff over the age of 18 -- this is one of the highest in the world. From 2007, someone working 39 hours per week at this rate is exempt from income tax, as earned income below 17,600.00 per year is not taxed."
also "State provided old age pensions are also relatively generous in Ireland. The maximum weekly rate for the State Pension (Contributory) is 223.30 for a single pensioner aged between 66 and 80 (423.30 for a pensioner couple in the same age range).[45] The maximum weekly rate for the State Pension (Non-Contributory) is 212.00 for a single pensioner aged between 66 and 80 (352.10 for a pensioner couple in the same age range).[46]"
Its a simple equation: artificially high wages, benefits, and taxation equals bye bye jobs
By doing this the 50 people lose their jobs, but now the entire country gains the use of widget X for a lower price than before.
Most companies would keep the price the same and simply make more profit. That profit would then go to the top 2% of society which generally owns everything.
If enough companies do this then no one has a job, and therefore no money to pay for these (theoretically) cheaper widgets.
Why do corporations never seem to search for cheaper CEOs?
Hey guys I am from Poland and guess what? I can more or less speak english and even know how to post on Slashdot.
And there's more. We do embedded software and hardware here, we know Linux and it's been that way for years already
Great! Can you answer me a question then?
Is it true that a typical Pole claims he can really outdrink an Irishman? If you think so, then I'm coming over there for the challenge!
During the electoral campaign, our current prime minister promised to make Poland the second Ireland as far as the economy is concerned. I did not, however, expect him to be that literal :)
This reminds me of the story of Irish potatoes. In the 18th century the Irish people were planting exactly one kind of potato and used it as main food supply. Then one day came a disease and all the crop died. As a result thousands of Irish people starved.
I like to bring this analogy in the same line as Microsoft software, but that the Irish people would do the same mistake twice.. Makes me wonder if humans are really able to learn out of failures?
I hate what we've become but I'm at a loss for how to fix it. Ideas?
I remembered watching this amazing documentary series made back in the sixties that detailed how to run a nearly perfect Utopian Society. It was so popular they kept showing it so that, as a young man in the late Seventies, I too could see the awesomeness of it. Of course I wasn't paying too much attention to the social aspects they were trying to explain, I was just excited about it because all the women wore short skirts and the narrator spent a lot of time banging hot chicks.
Later documentaries made in the Eighties and Nineties clarified some of the earlier concepts and really showed the awesomeness of their world management model. Although I never could figure out why the new narrator kept tugging on his shirt and yelling "Make it so!".
Still, I always thought we'd be much better off as a people if we could model our society on that wonderful documentary series. Of course I don't think a society like the one described in those documentaries could possibly work for us until we somehow managed to figure out the weird magic they use that creates something out of nothing.
"The problem is not that someone who doesn't look like you might take your job, it's that the corporation you work for will ship your job overseas for nothing more than a profit."
A dream is good. A plan is better.
First you'd need to define 'really unskilled'. Then realise that many of these people are violent and with criminal records. Denied employment or welfare, they will have no qualms in simply taking what they like.
That is only true if one assumes that today's "global economy" is established deeply enough to be a "closed" economy, in which the exchange of goods (including currency) is equitable, in the sense that it leads to further exchange of goods within the same economy, whcih eventually cycle around for the benefit of everyone. However, very often today this is not the case.
Take the situations concerning China and Japan, for example. While we are allowed to buy Chinese and Japanese goods, in many areas we are not allowed to sell goods in China and Japan that compete with their locally-manufactured goods. Therefore the economic benefits of exchange are NOT "fair" or equitable, and are largely one-sided. Not entirely, of course, but enough to distort the situation significantly.
Very often, it is more beneficial to your economy to keep your currency operating within your own "closed" economy, even if prices are higher, than it is to piss your currency away to someone else who does not return the economic benefits to your economy that would normally accompany the goods you receive in exchange.
There were choices available to the United States, and to corporations here who wanted to outsource and otherwise join the "global economy". There are right ways and wrong ways to go about it. In large part, they chose the wrong ways; at least if you judge that by the effects their efforts had on their "home" country and its economy.
If it were up to me, I would charge the officers of certain corporations with treason, for the way they treated their own people and their own economy, in pursuit of personal profit. The very people and the very economy and system that allowed them to grow so large in the first place.
In a week to ten days from today, the only question remaining at Big Blue is, how many thousands? It's sad stuff. I'm not a Dell customer, but layoffs suck, it's as simple as that.
If the voters in the USA had had to vote yes in each State under plebiscite to amend the US constitution *or* to agree to accept new member States then I doubt it would have grown much.
And the USA did not have European conservatives fronting the funding for proxy anti-Federalism parties within the USA.
Da Blog
If you're writing in English, then the name of the country is Ireland. Only if you are writing in Irish is the name of the country "Eire".
You don't say, for example, "Well, Deutschland is a little bit west of Polska", or "Hey, I was born in the Estados Unidos de America.
Using "Eire" where it is incorrect and Ireland is correct is just ignorance masquerading as pretension.
There's also supposed to be a "fada", or accent over the E in Eire, but Slashdot's preview seems to screw that up because it apparently can't conceive that anyone might want such a thing. This also includes the accent over the e in America, en castellano.
Da Blog
Now we will get cheaper hardware from Dell. This is a good thing, much more so than jobs going to people who need them more than the other guys. Also the other large part of the marketprice for labor, taxes, are way lower i Poland, so the government is f-cked. That is also a good thing.
OK, this is going to infuriate any Irish Slashdotters, and is almost certainly going to be modded "flamebait", which perhaps it is, but I'm telling it how I see it.
I am an American who moved to Ireland a couple of years ago because I saw the writing on the wall for the US economy. I transferred all my assets to gold bullion, stored in Europe.
So I've been living and working in Ireland for two years now, and let me tell you, Dell was absolutely right to leave. The "work-ethic" of the generation of Irish who grew up in the years of the so-called "Celtic Tiger" has to be seen to be believed. In act it is more of an "anti-work ethic"! The contrast with the thousands of Poles who have moved here in the last few years couldn't be starker. Dublin is so full of Poles that walking in the city center you hear Polish almost as often as English, and there are Polish shops everywhere. The Poles are mostly young, ambitious, and quite highly educated.
Dell's American management cannot have failed to notice the stunning cultural difference in attitudes towards work that I have seen. I did some research before I left on work attitudes in different European countries before I left America, so I know this is not merely a subjective judgement. Irish workers score lowest in Europe on "work-motivation". I don't have links, but if you are curious you can Scroogle them yourself. At the time, I just shrugged this information off, but the reality has to be seen to be believed.
Customer service in Ireland frequently just makes me gape in amazement. The major subject of casual conversation in this society, among all ages and classes(!) is "how drunk I got the other night". I am not kidding!
The Poles here, and many of the other foreigners who came for a slice of Celtic Tiger, have a very poor opinion of the Irish. I wouldn't employ Irish workers if I had any choice in the matter.
So, I agree with Dell. They made the right decision, and, happily, I will be leaving Ireland soon too.
Too bad for the Irish. They thought that they were some kind of financial geniuses because of the the absurd property bubble here, and massive agricultural subsidies from the EU.
Perhaps now they will understand that there's nothing "Protestant" about a work-ethic, just as Afro-Americans need to understand that it isn't "acting White" to do your homework when you're in school.
So let's have the government hold a gun to your head, take the fruits of your labour and distribute them to unskilled labourers. That should be okay, since life's a bitch and you might have better luck next reincarnation, right ?
Or we could try to make the life a little less of a bitch to everyone, including those unskilled labourers.
The fair consequence of being an arrogant jerk is to get whatever fate you callously wished upon those you considered lesser beings.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Polish Average IQ: 106, Irish Average IQ: 97
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article697134.ece
Any Questions?
There was a young man from Poole,
Who had a red ring round his tool.
When he went to the clinic,
The Doctor, a cynic said :
"It's only lipstick, you fool"
Citigroup didn't buy the highway operator - it was Citi Infrastructure Partners. This is a fund that is probably comprised of high net worth individuals, pensions, and other large investors from all over the world. This is also entirely separate from Citi as a bank; if Citigroup were to be deemed insolvent, and have its assets sold, Citi Infrastructure Partners would simply detach itself from the parent (this is currently happening with Lehman Brothers' various funds - if anyone wants a VC fund, it's currently up for grabs).
Where'd you read this info, by the way? I'd be interested to know if there's a news source that provided you with this incorrect analysis. There are a lot of reasons to hate these banks - and Citigroup is one of the worst of them - but that isn't the case here.
Why doesn't China have any road-map for Democracy?
I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga
The message seems to be way exaggerated.
1) 1900 out of 3000 workers would lose their job
2) the sales and marketing department will remain in Ireland
Please take a look at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7817487.stm
Of course it is not a good news for Irish workers, but the polish workers can face the same fate in the future if other (poorer) countries joined EU.
People like to buy cheap, so companies have to produce cheap. Thanks to this simple principle countries in the world can develop and the gap in wealth between different parts of the world is diminishing, which (I believe) is good.
The only restriction should be for the working conditions and the environment impact, not for the place.
'really unskilled': Without the knowledge to earn a decent living. These goalposts move depending on where you live. Most skilled people would learn locally appropriate skills without outside assistance.
Even in the criminal world the ones we need to worry about are skilled.
The 'really unskilled' are too clueless to be a threat. Think copper thieves.
If they tried to rebel they would simply be slaughtered.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Good luck with training them.
As a group they are uninterested in putting forth any effort.
Generally if they can show up for work on time and sober they will be trained on the job and develop skills. Everybodies first job is a shit job.
If they can't make it to work on time and sober there is nothing that can be done for them by anyone but themselves.
This isn't 17th century France. You analogy is stupid and completely ignores income and gun ownership demographics. The unskilled depend on the good will of the at least somewhat skilled majority to keep eating.
They make threats at their own risk.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'