Medtronic

SimpleSam06

Thirty jobs down, are we looking at more in the near future?

Sherifu

How many are they employing?

Malice

SimpleSam06 wrote: »

Thirty jobs down, are we looking at more in the near future?

Is that not just the usual seasonal lay-off of temporary staff? I read something in one of the local papers today about Medtronic relocating some manufacturing from California so to answer your question, yes there will be more lay offs in the future but since their staff turnover is high anyway, I don't think it's anything unusual. They're certainly not about to leave Galway anyway.

Bass Cadet

Sherifu wrote: »

How many are they employing?

One of the lads here reckons there is close to 2000 there at the moment? I think Medtronic usually do this kind of thing with temp staff...people on short term contracts not being renewed for whatever reason...No offence to temp staff but if thats the case then its nothing major to worry about I hope!

Malice

Bass Cadet wrote: »

One of the lads here reckons there is close to 2000 there at the moment?

There was definitely at least 2,000 there in 2006. I would be surprised if there isn't more nowadays.

SimpleSam06

malice_ wrote: »

Is that not just the usual seasonal lay-off of temporary staff?

No they are laying off a few thousand globally due to a downturn in business, Galway just got lucky. Lets hope it picks up soon!

Malice

SimpleSam06 wrote: »

No they are laying off a few thousand globally due to a downturn in business, Galway just got lucky. Lets hope it picks up soon!

Sorry, I should have been clearer with my question. I know that they are laying off quite a few worldwide, I meant whether it was just the usual layoffs from a Galway perspective.

People are in for a very rude awakening if they think that Ireland can sustain the manufacturing side of assembly line production places like Medtronic for much longer. Why would an American multinational pay people €14+ per hour (more for evening/night shift) when they can pay a Mexican or an Indian a fraction of that and get the same work done?

kippy

From what I know, The redundancies in Galway/Globally are permanent staff. Companies generally don't generally announce temporary or seasonal staff layoffs.
It appears that due to the low number of redundancies in Galway the majority will be voluntary.

The gist of the stories I have read also lead me to believe they will be moving more jobs into Galway in the short to medium term from the States. A good thing for Galway in general.
US companies have long since been able to get labour cheaper in other locations other than Ireland however due to the nature of the product they produce India or Mexico are not European and hence there are regulatory and indeed logistical issues with it. That plus the fact that a lot of these companies have invested heavily in training and facilities in this country.
Not saying it'll never happen, just that there are certain companies who are less likely to pull out.

Galways (over)reliance on two or three large multinationals is not a good thing, however the fact that they are medical device companies is at least one bonus.
Kippy

Malice

kippy wrote: »

Companies generally don't generally announce temporary or seasonal staff layoffs.

That's a good point. I hadn't thought of that!

kippy wrote:

The gist of the stories I have read also lead me to believe they will be moving more jobs into Galway in the short to medium term from the States. A good thing for Galway in general.

If they are skilled jobs in the R&D area maybe.

kippy wrote:

US companies have long since been able to get labour cheaper in other locations other than Ireland however due to the nature of the product they produce India or Mexico are not European and hence there are regulatory and indeed logistical issues with it. That plus the fact that a lot of these companies have invested heavily in training and facilities in this country.

I agree with you on the investment front but are there not just as many logistical/regulatory issues wherever manufacturing is done? Plus Mexico for example is a lot closer to the USA than Ireland so would manufactured products not therefore be easier to transport?

tonyhiggins

It's 30 jobs out of 1,100 to go worldwide which is less than I feared when I first heard about it, but yup they're all in permanent contract positions. They're moving the Endovascular manufacturing, I would say following from previous moves like that some R&D work could follow. The Irish factory has the advantage of being in the EU for access to the market here and is FDA Approved for validating products, which Mexico was not up to three months ago at least. That's what the factory has going for it...

I feel like I got out at the right time when I did

tonyhiggins

Oh, and the DES facilities are here. That's good for the Galway plant...

Malice

tonyhiggins wrote: »

I feel like I got out at the right time when I did

I worked there myself for long enough. It's always the right time to leave places like that!

encyclopedia

They relocating staff to California is for training purposes as they are developing a new line of products in the Galway plant, they will be training there for 3 months and then they will come back to train the remainder of the Galway based staff. It doesnt appear to me that they are planning to layoff a lot of staff due to the fact that they are training a lot of people abroad which is costing a small fortune. The development of new products here is promising.