Will Poland be a nail in the coffin of Irish economy?
Posted on January 19, 2009 by admin
The decision of Dell to close down the plant in Limerick and move the almost entire production and assembly lines to factory in Lodz (in Poland) that was built just 2 years ago, was widely discussed in Ireland. This is the real disaster to the city of Limerick. I guess that about 4 thousands of people is going to loose their jobs in the forthcoming months, but the real impact on jobs and local economy will be more clearly visible in the forthcoming months. Of course bad news for Limerick are good news for Lodz. The plant wil employ more people and this is the chance for the local business. Local and Polish enterprises can co-operate with that big American corporate. For Dell itself the situation is probably even more comfortable. Polish Zloty is falling down day by day. Today 1PLN is 4.31 EU and the average salary in the factories/plants in Lodz is about 1500 – 2000 PLN a month for the ordinary worker. The salaries at Dell plant in Lodz are somewhere between. That means that at the moment the maximum salary is 464 Euro a month and is decreasing together with the worth of Polish Zloty. If we compare the minimum wage in Ireland, which is about 1400 Euro/month it is clearly visible that Dell is saving a lot of money every month. The Dell’s scenario is a warning for the Irish economy – the other international companies can leave Ireland in the nearest future. Actually Dell is not the first company that left Ireland for Poland and Lodz region. Couple of years ago Procter And Gable closed down its factory in Nenagh (North Tipperary) and moved to Aleksandrow Lodzki (satelite town of Lodz). I won’t be surprised if the other intertnational or even Irish ones do the same.
