Dell screws Ireland over... In favor of Poland

TheLastOne36

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Tried to find an English article, it's big news here in Poland.

Dell seeks refuge in Poland as crisis bites

11 hours ago

LODZ, Poland (AFP) — There is no joy among workers at Dell's factory here over the global computer giant's decision to shift production from Ireland to Poland but as the economic crisis bites they are relieved their jobs are safe.

"We understand it's a blow to people in Ireland -- we Poles have also suffered high unemployment -- but it's difficult not to be a little bit selfish in this (economic) situation," says Bartosz, a 23-year-old Dell employee and IT student waiting for a bus home outside the vast plant after a shift.

As he gazes down from a balcony overlooking the factory's state-of-the-art assembly lines, Rafal Branowski, communications manager for Dell Poland, says it is unclear how many of the 1,900 Dell jobs lost in Limerick will come to Poland.

The size of five football pitches, the giant factory's three lines employ 1,800 people assembling built-to-order laptops using Asian-made components for clients in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

"The decision to transfer production from our Irish plant in Limerick here to Lodz and third parties is part of a plan to save three billion dollars," says Branowski.

Pressed, he admits at least one new production line for desk tops and servers creating upwards of 300 jobs is likely to begin operation within a year.

With salaries on the factory floor averaging 1,500 to 2,000 zlotys (345-460 euros, 445-590 dollars) per month, labour costs in Poland are a fraction of those in Ireland.

Aside from a competitive and skilled labour market, Branowski says its proximity to major European clients was a key factor in Dell's decision to first set up shop in Lodz three years ago.

"We did everything possible and even more to make sure Dell came here," says Aleksandra Suszczewicz, the city's investor relations coordinator.

The factory lies inside one of Poland's fourteen Special Economic Zones (SEZ), where investors enjoy exemptions from both property taxes and Poland's 19 percent corporate income tax while often getting public aid to boot.

Lodz city hall created all the necessary infrastructure -- including fences, roads and public bus service -- on the property slated for Dell.

This "the customer is always right" and "full service" approach has attracted 980 foreign investors to Lodz so far, among them Proctor and Gamble, Bosch-Siemens, CitiFinancial, Indesit, Gillette, Infosys, ABB, DHL, TNT and Flextronics.

Both production plants and business processing offshore (BPO) facilities are mushrooming in the city known until recently as a 19th Century industrial boom town gone-to-seed after being hit hard by waves of industrial collapse.

The investment boom has seen unemployment in Lodz dive from 20 percent four years ago to 6.5 percent in December 2008.

It is now aiming to attract enough investors to create 40,000 new jobs by 2015. Under EU rules, Poland's SEZs can operate until the end of 2020.

I left the boring ending out, read it here

Well that will help Lodz quite a bit i guess, and they said that the only other alternative is to move the factory to Asia, might as well be us then China.
 
Michael, wir fahr'n nach Lodz ;)
 
It's a natural enough progression, FDI will help Poland develop just like it helped Ireland in the 1990s. The labour market here can't compete with Poland, and I would imagine transport is far cheaper in Poland too.

Over reliance on foreign multinational investment is a problem here, maybe this will add impetus to find solutions.
 
The factory lies inside one of Poland's fourteen Special Economic Zones (SEZ), where investors enjoy exemptions from both property taxes and Poland's 19 percent corporate income tax while often getting public aid to boot.

This should be banned inside the whole EU. If there is an economic union (much as I may dislike it), there must also be uniform rules for corporate taxation. Why should the private shareholders of Dell or any other corporation have it subsidized with public funds? Just because "everyone does it, and we must compete?". Ban it, and slap punitive duties on imports form countries doing it.

But I can't say I pity Ireland, they were doing the same thing.
 
Maybe GM will move to Ireland now? :)
 
The subject bar should probably be: Dell screws over the US then Ireland in favor of Poland.
 
Tried to find an English article, it's big news here in Poland.

I left the boring ending out, read it here

Well that will help Lodz quite a bit i guess, and they said that the only other alternative is to move the factory to Asia, might as well be us then China.

So they finally realized that that moving the factory to Poland is cheaper than moving Poles to the factory in Ireland? Wow :lol:


16,000 posts, juchů! :dance:
 
What inno said.

It will not prevent Poland's slide into recession. :(
 
Unemployment in Poland is 12.7%, and in large cities it's much much lower.. (in Warsaw it doesn't exceed 3%, apparently) Lodz (3rd largest city) - 6.5%

It's quite amazing considering how bad things were just a couple years ago. Things have improved significantly. When I was there in 2004, young people were leaving in droves (mostly to the UK), due to a lack of jobs.

I feel bad for Ireland, but they have one of the better economies in the EU (right?), so this won't hurt them much.
 
I feel bad for Ireland, but they have one of the better economies in the EU (right?), so this won't hurt them much.
It ranks among the very richest economies in Europe. But it will probably suffer the most from this recession in the EU. 2009 forecast is -5 %, the economy already shrank by ~2 % in 2008. Add that to the de facto bankruptcy of the state and you can imagine how bad things are looking in Ireland right now.
 
This is old news. The BBC ran an article on this which basically said due to the recession in Europe (and around the world) Dell is starting a new round of cost cutting so they're moving out of Ireland and into cheaper Poland. When Poland is to expensive in 10 years or so they'll no doubt move some where else.
 
This should be banned inside the whole EU. If there is an economic union (much as I may dislike it), there must also be uniform rules for corporate taxation. Why should the private shareholders of Dell or any other corporation have it subsidized with public funds? Just because "everyone does it, and we must compete?". Ban it, and slap punitive duties on imports form countries doing it.

Completely agree. The net effect of the whole move is shifting money from the combined EU governments to Dell.
 
What inno said.

It will not prevent Poland's slide into recession. :(

EU forecast counts with about 2% growth in 2009.

Unemployment in Poland is 12.7%, and in large cities it's much much lower.. (in Warsaw it doesn't exceed 3%, apparently) Lodz (3rd largest city) - 6.5%

It's quite amazing considering how bad things were just a couple years ago. Things have improved significantly. When I was there in 2004, young people were leaving in droves (mostly to the UK), due to a lack of jobs.

I feel bad for Ireland, but they have one of the better economies in the EU (right?), so this won't hurt them much.

Uhm, what? Unemployment is now about 8% in Poland. That's huge improvement, I remember hearing about nearly 20% only few years ago. Unemployment decreased rapidly in whole Central Europe, in the Czech rep., it's now lower than in most Western European countries.

Completely agree. The net effect of the whole move is shifting money from the combined EU governments to Dell.

Funny how Germans always complain when the countries to the East of them want to attract investments. I think it's better to keep these factories in the EU, rather than to force the companies to move production to Asia.

Anyway, these incentives are now being phased out in the Czech Rep., as the economy evolves and focuses on more sophisticated production. Poland is few years behind us in this respect, but I think they'll eventually do the same once they realize that tax cuts can't be the basis of long term development.
 
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