Vol. 532 No. 3
86 Mr. Durkan asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the total number of jobs lost in the economy through relocation to lower wage economies in the past 12 months; the number of new jobs provided through overseas or multinational investment in the same period; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [7310/01]
While I am concerned at any factors that might adversely affect industrial employment, there is no evidence available to my Department or the industrial development agencies of any increased tendency for firms to relocate to low wage economies. It is not possible to determine the number of enterprises or sections of enterprises which have relocated to other economies in the past 12 months as statistics are not maintained in this format.
The trend in employment arising from inward investment continues to be extremely favourable. A record 23,300 new jobs were created in IDA Ireland supported companies during 2000. Allowing for job losses of 8,100, total employment in IDA companies increased by 15,200 to almost 140,000, which represents an increase of 12.2%.
The reasons for relocation are many, varied and complex, and Ireland has on balance benefited from such movement in recent times due to the strength of our economy. The job losses which are occurring are mainly as a result of the restructuring process which is going on in industry in Ireland whereby activities – and hence jobs – at the lower end of the value added scale are being phased out as these activities become uneconomic in an Irish context.
IDA's policy in this regard is, first, to focus a major part of its efforts on an embedding programme for the existing overseas owned companies in this country. It also seeks to ensure that, as jobs are lost at the lower end of the scale, they are more than compensated for by a greater numbers of jobs at the higher end. This process has been more than successful over the past decade and would not have occurred without IDA's continual active promotion of Ireland as an investment location against competition from other destinations for foreign investment.
