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Will the tech giants close buildings in the docks

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    #62
    Cordell
    Registered Users Posts: 5,849 ✭✭✭Cordell


    Ireland needs to care and make the employer care. You are not an Irish employee if you're living outside the state and this needs to have implications before it gets out of control.


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    #63
    krissovo
    Registered Users Posts: 2,645 ✭✭✭krissovo


    arctictree wrote: »
    Aren't most of Google ireland employees foreign? I'd say a lot of them have headed home and are enjoying Irish Tech salaries on a fraction of the rent....

    I work for a similar multinational who are adopting similar WFH policies to google. Most staff have stayed but some of the employees have left, also some who have had second homes abroad are also working from them. A significant number have also given notice on expensive city rents and have moved to cheaper locations in Ireland.

    For those abroad there is the 180 day rule for tax and the company has acknowledged this and coming up with new policies to support this. Also note that it is not a new challenge, some employees already face this issue when they work extensively away from home and revenue has rules to support this. My own company has hired a consulting house to review and has issued questionnaires as to where we want to work from.


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    #64
    awec
    Administrators Posts: 53,505 Admin ✭✭✭✭✭awec


    arctictree wrote: »
    You could be in Cork or Barcelona, does the employer really care?

    Yes, very much so.

    Employee's tax is one thing, but there is also costs for employers, particularly if they take advantage of tax initiatives which generally require that the work is done in Ireland.


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    #65
    Cordell
    Registered Users Posts: 5,849 ✭✭✭Cordell


    Because those tax initiatives were done under the assumption that the employees will spend their money in Ireland.


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    #66
    arctictree
    Registered Users Posts: 4,293 ✭✭✭arctictree


    Cordell wrote: »
    Because those tax initiatives were done under the assumption that the employees will spend their money in Ireland.

    I thought favourable tax treatment was deemed illegal by the EU? It's just our low rate of general corporation tax that is attractive?


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    #67
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 14,344 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    endacl wrote: »
    Young Facebook and google staff ain’t coming here to work in Westmeath...


    Because there's no job in Westmeath to go to.

    awec wrote: »
    You really haven't a notion.

    Google, Microsoft, Facebook etc are not competing for staff from Dublin vs Leitrim ffs. It's Dublin vs London vs Paris vs Stockholm etc etc.

    If they stuck a big building in Leitrim and stuck a Google/Microsoft/Facebook logo on it they wouldn't get the staff they need, pure and simple. The talent would just not be available.


    It would make no difference whatsoever, whether Google was based in Dublin or XYZ (pick anywhere up to an hour away from dublin, go to 90 minutes away and you still likely have the very same pool of people willing to work for you).


    Dublin VS London has nothing to do with the argument I've put forward. Completely irrelevant.


    What I said is, simply, that if Google wanted to open a warehouse/office/whatever in Cavan, Roscommon, Leitrim, etc. people who are currently available to work for them, would still be available to work for them. Nobody is going to turn down that job because it's not inside the m50. On the contrary; I imagine more people would want it.


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    #68
    AlmightyCushion
    Moderators, Education Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 35,059 Mod ✭✭✭✭AlmightyCushion


    Deleted User wrote: »
    Because there's no job in Westmeath to go to.





    It would make no difference whatsoever, whether Google was based in Dublin or XYZ (pick anywhere up to an hour away from dublin, go to 90 minutes away and you still likely have the very same pool of people willing to work for you).


    Dublin VS London has nothing to do with the argument I've put forward. Completely irrelevant.


    What I said is, simply, that if Google wanted to open a warehouse/office/whatever in Cavan, Roscommon, Leitrim, etc. people who are currently available to work for them, would still be available to work for them. Nobody is going to turn down that job because it's not inside the m50. On the contrary; I imagine more people would want it.

    No they wouldn't. Some would work there but plenty won't. Plenty live in or around the city centre and would not want to travel to Leitrim or Cavan for a job. I know I sure as hell wouldn't.


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    #69
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 14,344 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    AlmightyCushion wrote: »
    No they wouldn't. Some would work there but plenty won't. Plenty live in or around the city centre and would not want to travel to Leitrim or Cavan for a job. I know I sure as hell wouldn't.

    Plenty don't live in and around the city centre, though. Plenty have spent way over the odds on expensive shoebox houses to live in the city simply because the job was there, and would sell up in a heartbeat.

    The rest (majority?) are already commuting in from outside Dublin as is, anyway.


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    #70
    ronivek
    Registered Users Posts: 1,916 ✭✭✭ronivek


    Deleted User wrote: »
    Plenty don't live in and around the city centre, though. Plenty have spent way over the odds on expensive shoebox houses to live in the city simply because the job was there, and would sell up in a heartbeat.

    The rest (majority?) are already commuting in from outside Dublin as is, anyway.

    I'm not sure you're familiar with the workings of the world and the realities many people face:
    • People generally can't just 'sell up' at the drop of a hat; you need to find a property whilst simultaneously selling your previous property. This is not trivial at the best of times.
    • People have lives and homes they don't want to give up at all; including kids in school and partners with their own local jobs.
    • Even leases tend to be signed in 10-12+ month blocks; so moving also has to be planned in advance if you don't want to end up paying extra rent.
    In addition standard salaries tend to differ in Dublin versus other parts of the country; so it would also tend to include pay cuts due to the cost of living decreases.

    All of this is without even getting into the realms of how much office space is actually available in different parts of the country for leasing; since many companies don't tend to purchase their own land and build their own offices. Or how many places in the country could actually house the 2-5,000 workers that would come along with a significantly sized company moving to the middle of nowhere.


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    #71
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 14,344 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    ronivek wrote: »
    I'm not sure you're familiar with the workings of the world and the realities many people face:
    • People generally can't just 'sell up' at the drop of a hat; you need to find a property whilst simultaneously selling your previous property. This is not trivial at the best of times.
    • People have lives and homes they don't want to give up at all; including kids in school and partners with their own local jobs.
    • Even leases tend to be signed in 10-12+ month blocks; so moving also has to be planned in advance if you don't want to end up paying extra rent.
    In addition standard salaries tend to differ in Dublin versus other parts of the country; so it would also tend to include pay cuts due to the cost of living decreases.

    All of this is without even getting into the realms of how much office space is actually available in different parts of the country for leasing; since many companies don't tend to purchase their own land and build their own offices. Or how many places in the country could actually house the 2-5,000 workers that would come along with a significantly sized company moving to the middle of nowhere.


    You're focusing way too heavily on a specific, possibly overall small segment of people that work for these companies, that live within dublin and wouldn't want to sell up.

    Many people that work for these companies have sold up and moved to dublin just because of the job. Doing it the other way around is no more difficult (probably easier as property values work significantly in your favour).

    Again, nothing to do with available office space, the whole start of the argument was 'if google/microsoft built their offices somewhere else'.

    They wouldn't offer less pay. Why would they do that? Of course you'd have a smaller pool of people willing to work for you if you offered less pay. They could offer the same pay and still have reduced operating costs, and staff would have a better quality of life, more money in their pockets, etc. if they lived in these areas.


    In short, what I'm saying is, if Microsoft (or apple, google, whatever) were building a big ass office building in dublin city centre, but opted instead to do it in Longford or westmeath, they wouldn't have any noticeable issues in doing so. The same numbers of people would be applying for jobs. The same qualified people would be applying for jobs. Their cost to build would be lower, the staff would have a better quality of life, and more money in their pockets.

    The single point i was initially trying to make when i first posted here, when another poster commented that all these offices on the docks is a 'showing off' thing to do, is that Google, if they wanted to, can build an office block pretty much anywhere, and that I agreed there is an element of demonstrating wealth by building in the capital city centre.

    The only real argument put forward against that is that if they built in westmeath, nobody would work for them, which is obviously nonsense.


    EDIT: look at it this way - if work from home becomes a long term permanent thing, do you not reckon all these houses in the middle of nowhere will suddenly start becoming very popular? (Although according to, I think, Sherry Fitzgerald, apparently they already have, with people considering these options).


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    #72
    awec
    Administrators Posts: 53,505 Admin ✭✭✭✭✭awec


    Deleted User wrote: »
    Because there's no job in Westmeath to go to.





    It would make no difference whatsoever, whether Google was based in Dublin or XYZ (pick anywhere up to an hour away from dublin, go to 90 minutes away and you still likely have the very same pool of people willing to work for you).


    Dublin VS London has nothing to do with the argument I've put forward. Completely irrelevant.


    What I said is, simply, that if Google wanted to open a warehouse/office/whatever in Cavan, Roscommon, Leitrim, etc. people who are currently available to work for them, would still be available to work for them. Nobody is going to turn down that job because it's not inside the m50. On the contrary; I imagine more people would want it.
    Yes, they would. This is exactly what would happen.

    These big tech companies don't spend money for the craic. They don't build big, super-expensive offices in cities just for fun. They build them there because if they want to attract the level of talent they want, that's where they need to be. It's a cost of doing business.

    The fact of the matter is if they built their offices in Longford or Leitrim or Westmeath or whatever they would not get the level of staff that they demand.

    Your misunderstanding here is stemming from you thinking that these companies look for staff at a national level. The reality is they look for staff internationally. Jobs for big tech in Dublin are advertised worldwide, and candidates apply from all over. They get people who want to move to Dublin from the likes of Laois or Offaly, the same as they get people who want to move to Dublin from Germany, India, the US, Canada, Denmark etc etc. These people are not interested in moving to Westmeath, they'd just apply for the jobs in Londron or New York or Manchester or whatever instead.


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    #73
    Shefwedfan
    Closed Accounts Posts: 18,958 ✭✭✭✭Shefwedfan


    So what have we figured out so far, MNC :
    Only build office to wave willies at each other
    No Irish work in them
    You can shut them down and stick everyone in the middle of outback and it won’t make a difference
    Something about Westmeath

    It’s good to see the knowledge of posters on boards is astounding


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    #74
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,651 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    https://fora.ie/tech-jobs-cork-limerick-galway-3854876-Feb2018/

    A lot of these companies can't find office space big enough outside of Dublin. In Dublin there has been a shift to conciliate smaller offices into single big sites buildings and these are only being built in Dublin. Even then the buildings are not big enough.

    Then traffic and commuting is so bad, that locations where people don't need cars are becoming more attractive.


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    #75
    Biafranlivemat
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 386 ✭✭Biafranlivemat


    Very interesting article about WFH.
    Main points.
    Work-From-Home is here to stay with major consequences.

    Companies need less office space and less furniture.
    Less air travel
    Fewer hotel stays
    People who work at home will eat at home, not go out for lunch



    https://www.thestreet.com/mishtalk/economics/googles-blockbuster-work-from-home-announcement


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    #76
    M256
    Registered Users Posts: 58 ✭✭M256


    Putting those offices into the Docklands without adequate transport infrastructure, was it corruption or just lack of understanding how a modern city should be built? If those offices never reopen nobody will cry. Larger and cheaper offices can be built outside of Dublin. With a mixture of WFH and using office space for necessary meetings, this will be a much nicer option.

    Somebody mentioned Erickson in Athlone - they offer really low salaries and their brand is so boring and obsolete like Kodak, no self-respecting young talent would want to work for them, and this is nothing to do with them being in Athlone.

    And those who don’t get remote working will soon be irrelevant.


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    #77
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    Ah, the Docklands. An image that sticks in my mind from the ‘80s was that of two aerial shots of the London Docklands, hanging in one of the offices in the then newly built London City airport.

    Taken from the same vantage point, one was a photograph of the docks in the 1950s. So many ships, you could hardly see any of the river. Berthed four and five deep at the docks, teeming with activity, life, goods. The other was contemporary - the runway, apron and terminal on the Royal Docks, and not a ship in sight.

    My point is the dockers in the 50s thought their jobs were going to be there for ever. Nothing lasts forever. Business demands change, sometimes dramatically. Given the ever increasing ability to work remotely, from home or wherever, and the recent decisions by the big tech companies in the Dublin docks to actively encourage it, maybe we are seeing the beginning of the end of these big prestigious, mine’s bigger than yours, developments.


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    #78
    Shefwedfan
    Closed Accounts Posts: 18,958 ✭✭✭✭Shefwedfan


    M256 wrote: »
    Putting those offices into the Docklands without adequate transport infrastructure, was it corruption or just lack of understanding how a modern city should be built? If those offices never reopen nobody will cry. Larger and cheaper offices can be built outside of Dublin. With a mixture of WFH and using office space for necessary meetings, this will be a much nicer option.

    Somebody mentioned Erickson in Athlone - they offer really low salaries and their brand is so boring and obsolete like Kodak, no self-respecting young talent would want to work for them, and this is nothing to do with them being in Athlone.

    And those who don’t get remote working will soon be irrelevant.

    Ericsson I guess you mean, it’s safe to say you haven’t a clue what they do....


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    #79
    M256
    Registered Users Posts: 58 ✭✭M256


    Shefwedfan wrote: »
    Ericsson I guess you mean, it’s safe to say you haven’t a clue what they do....
    Did an interview with them 15 years ago in Athlone, next day got a much higher salary in Dublin. As I said they were boring even then, but of course people who think that Nokia is still cool may think that Ericsson (or whatever auto spell check is replacing it with) is a good brand to work for.

    From time to time there is a strategic inflection point and this one is happening now. WFH as in WFH vs the office is the new norm. WFH as in from any jurisdiction (tax, legal) is a far more complex question.


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    #80
    Shefwedfan
    Closed Accounts Posts: 18,958 ✭✭✭✭Shefwedfan


    M256 wrote: »
    Did an interview with them 15 years ago in Athlone, next day got a much higher salary in Dublin. As I said they were boring even then, but of course people who think that Nokia is still cool may think that Ericsson (or whatever auto spell check is replacing it with) is a good brand to work for.

    From time to time there is a strategic inflection point and this one is happening now. WFH as in WFH vs the office is the new norm. WFH as in from any jurisdiction (tax, legal) is a far more complex question.

    So you don’t know what they do :-)

    Not great going for interview with no idea what the company does


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    #81
    YellowBucket
    Closed Accounts Posts: 491 ✭✭YellowBucket


    M256 wrote: »
    Putting those offices into the Docklands without adequate transport infrastructure, was it corruption or just lack of understanding how a modern city should be built? If those offices never reopen nobody will cry. Larger and cheaper offices can be built outside of Dublin. With a mixture of WFH and using office space for necessary meetings, this will be a much nicer option.

    Somebody mentioned Erickson in Athlone - they offer really low salaries and their brand is so boring and obsolete like Kodak, no self-respecting young talent would want to work for them, and this is nothing to do with them being in Athlone.

    And those who don’t get remote working will soon be irrelevant.

    Ericsson is one of the world’s leading communications infrastructure providers. Their core business is the development of infrastructure that runs mobile phone networks and telecommunication networks generally. They’re quite literally the largest vendor in the world in terms of installed equipment and have been for the best part of a hundred years.

    If you look at Ireland for example Vodafone, 3 and Eir mobile run on mostly Ericsson built infrastructure. Vodafone and 3 have gone with Ericsson to provide all of their 5G infrastructure, while Eir mobile is using Ericsson for all of the core parts of their 5G build, with Huawei only on the radio access network.

    50% of the Irish fixed line network has also been Ericsson, going way back to the 1950s, across several generations of analogue and digital systems. The rest of it is Alcatel (now Nokia).

    People seem to think Ericsson and Nokia only made mobile phone handsets. That was a small % of their business making consumer products. The majority of their business has always been developing infrastructure.

    The reason Ericsson is in Athlone btw is that it was originally a manufacturing plant. In the days when P&T ordered large numbers of Ericsson crossbar switching systems back in the 1950s to 1970s it was all assembled and localised in Athlone. That then followed on with digital systems in the 1980s and morphed into R&D and software as the technology moved on. They’re not comparable to a post 2000s tech company at all.

    You’d compare Ericsson to Bell Labs (now part of Nokia btw) or IBM. They’re old tech infrastructure companies.


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    #82
    JasonStatham
    Closed Accounts Posts: 548 ✭✭✭JasonStatham


    M256 wrote: »

    Somebody mentioned Erickson in Athlone - they offer really low salaries and their brand is so boring and obsolete like Kodak, no self-respecting young talent would want to work for them.

    Their sponsored MSc program, would say different


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    #83
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,651 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    [Deleted User] wrote: »
    .... Nothing lasts forever. Business demands change, sometimes dramatically. Given the ever increasing ability to work remotely, from home or wherever, and the recent decisions by the big tech companies in the Dublin docks to actively encourage it, maybe we are seeing the beginning of the end of these big prestigious, mine’s bigger than yours, developments....

    A lot of companies are doing what they can from home. But they can't do everything from home. Likewise people might be able to work temporarily from home, but in the long run will need to be back at work at some point.

    So don't think the current situation is a new normal. It isn't.

    Even in the short term if 50% of people go back to work but need to social distance that 50% will take up 100% of their office.


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    #84
    Shefwedfan
    Closed Accounts Posts: 18,958 ✭✭✭✭Shefwedfan


    YellowBucket wrote: »
    People seem to think Ericsson and Nokia only made mobile phone handsets.

    I doubt the poster ever went near the place, this is the most relevant point, some people just think of an old Ericsson phone and think that’s what they do :-)


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    #85
    Dyr
    Registered Users Posts: 23,246 ✭✭✭✭Dyr


    beauf wrote: »
    A lot of companies are doing what they can from home. But they can't do everything from home. Likewise people might be able to work temporarily from home, but in the long run will need to be back at work at some point.

    What can't they do from home?


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    #86
    M256
    Registered Users Posts: 58 ✭✭M256


    I said they were boring not insignificant. Liking them to IBM, etc. does not help. How many young talent would want to work for Bell Labs and not Google? Anyway it was just an example. WFH is a massive shift on the market that changes how and where companies compete for talent. Big shiny offices in places like the docks are no longer something that would attract people. Of course not everyone will WFH 100% but even doing that 2 or 3 days a week will lead to massive changes.


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    #87
    Shefwedfan
    Closed Accounts Posts: 18,958 ✭✭✭✭Shefwedfan


    Bambi wrote: »
    What can't they do from home?

    I have worked from home a few days a week for years, now we are full time but we will return to old process in next while

    Anyone I have talked to across different area including banking, utilities etc are all saying the same. A mixture of work from home will be future. Maybe 3 days at home and 2 at work followed next week by 4/1.....more focus on work from home but still with days in office

    You spend more time on some work items that would be a lot quicker to just bang it out in a meeting for 1-2 hours fave to face


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    #88
    nthclare
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 3,316 ✭✭✭nthclare


    beauf wrote: »
    https://fora.ie/tech-jobs-cork-limerick-galway-3854876-Feb2018/

    A lot of these companies can't find office space big enough outside of Dublin. In Dublin there has been a shift to conciliate smaller offices into single big sites buildings and these are only being built in Dublin. Even then the buildings are not big enough.

    Then traffic and commuting is so bad, that locations where people don't need cars are becoming more attractive.

    Shannon Commercial Properties are attractive and when the Greens get a hold of the potential of plane's flying into Shannon due to 3% less carbon emissions rather than landing in Dublin.
    The Midwest will be the place to work.

    Watch this space, you read it here...


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    #89
    Yellow_Fern
    Registered Users Posts: 2,584 ✭✭✭Yellow_Fern


    awec wrote: »
    This post is fairly ignorant of reality.

    The bit in bold, there was nothing stopping them doing this last year, or two years ago, or 10 years ago. Some folk have been beating this drum for years, "you can't rely on the tech companies for employment cause they'll just leave at any moment" etc etc. They've been here over 30 years in some cases, at some stage people will give up on this one.

    Ireland provides numerous benefits. One is the tax and another is the English speaking. But there is also the fact it's an attractive place to live so not hard to get people to move here, it's got good local talent and it has a great time zone relative to the US.

    (On a side note, these MNCs employ loads of Irish people).

    The likes of Berlin or Amsterdam or Copenhagen have all these strengths and a much better cities to live compared with Dublin, as do Asian countries. English fluency is stunning in India.


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    #90
    Yellow_Fern
    Registered Users Posts: 2,584 ✭✭✭Yellow_Fern


    awec wrote: »
    Yes, they would. This is exactly what would happen.
    Your misunderstanding here is stemming from you thinking that these companies look for staff at a national level. The reality is they look for staff internationally. Jobs for big tech in Dublin are advertised worldwide, and candidates apply from all over. They get people who want to move to Dublin from the likes of Laois or Offaly, the same as they get people who want to move to Dublin from Germany, India, the US, Canada, Denmark etc etc. These people are not interested in moving to Westmeath, they'd just apply for the jobs in Londron or New York or Manchester or whatever instead.

    Clearly you have never been to a hospital outside of Dublin. They are filled with non national staff. Even the most rural hospitals have consultants from the far ends of the Middle East. If anything medicine is a lot more competitive than tech.


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    #91
    ronivek
    Registered Users Posts: 1,916 ✭✭✭ronivek


    Yellow_Fern wrote: »
    The likes of Berlin or Amsterdam or Copenhagen have all these strengths and a much better cities to live compared with Dublin, as do Asian countries. English fluency is stunning in India.

    Not really. Flight times and time zones aren’t as attractive as Ireland. Plus your personal preference for Berlin or wherever being ‘much better’ doesn’t apply to everyone. In addition you’ll find many multinationals already have presences in those cities alongside Dublin; it’s not an either/or choice.

    As for India it’s already a significant hub for many tech multinationals and will no doubt continue to grow; but I suspect not at the expense of US or EU hubs.


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