Eighty-five jobs are to be lost at a shirt factory in the Waterside area of Londonderry.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/7196225.stm
The private sector has been taking a pounding recently, with Seagate and everything. I can't see the state sector remaining untouched when the coffers are running on empty (they already are, I know)



this from POD on the main forum

What economy - 'we haven't got an economy'

We have a socialist bureaucracy but no economy!

Sorry but I couldn't resist and it is a pretty truthful answer too....

Will keep my ears open though and try to post regularly on this thread.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/7200165.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/7200165.stm

Citibank planning ~300 jobs in Belfast by end of '09 - there's a recruitment freeze at the moment apparently, but that's the medium-term plan. We're cheaper than London after all...

I don't believe it will happen.

Expect companies like the Halifax etc... to pull out when they have to cut numbers.

And i wouldn't call an electrical storage heater company as "technology firm."

Since the real economy is so weak in NI the only changes that will really matter are changes to bureaucracy levels.
The companies like Fujitsu that came in to NI with a fanfare are merely vehicles for the government to cut jobs whilst making out that it is creating jobs - all part of the booming economy.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/loc...icle3360031.ece


Bad news for ulster consumers

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/7216552.stm
Hopeless doesn't begin to describe this, perhaps hapless

Breast implant factory goes tits up!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/7217704.stm

detail:

US pharmaceutical company Allergan will phase out work at its factory in Arklow, south of Dublin, over two years and transfer operations to Costa Rica.

General manager of the Allergan plant Paul Moody paid tribute to the workers and thanked them for their dedication.

Ciaran Connolly of trade union SIPTU said labour and other costs were lower in central America than in Ireland.

In a statement, Allergan said: "For economic and operational reasons, Allergan will consolidate the manufacturing of its breast implant products to the company's state-of-the-art facility in Costa Rica."

Local Councillor, Ivor Fetash said 'I personally don't think their management team has a firm grip of the business, surely they should hold their assets closer to the european front. With these things in front of us now, you can expect others to soon topple over or see a reduction at a later date. This front-end loading strategy is soon to become a thing of the past anyway, the market is far too weighed down'

You almost had me there PP

breast off that they close it then

Bo(s)om bo(s)om!

I'll be here till Sunday...try the venison...I hear it's great

I was told in the main thread that citigroup belfast was bulletproof. Frankly I do not believe that. Yes, we may be cheaper but in times of trouble, an organisation will consolidate to strengthen its core at the expense of the perimeter. Belfast will be a perimeter location and I would envisage that we would see job losses pretty early on in a widespread culling.

For interest sake, has anyone noticed that the citigroup logo has been removed from their building....

Citigroup in deep poo poo so I would not believe that! They have shred something like 30,000 jobs worldwide and are still in deep poo poo!

'citigroup' is rebranding globally as 'citi', the umbrella is going and being replaced by an arc.

No conspiracy theory required on that one.

No suspicion of a conspiracy, I just realised that there must have been something I was not aware of.... now i know what it is!

I heard that the jobs in Belfast are under the Citigroup double arches emblem.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/7234196.stm

100 new call centre jobs - probably earning 50k

hmm - that £50k - I take it that it would shared equally between all 100!

Jobs bonanza in Larne - should put a few shops out of business though
http://u.tv/newsroom/indepth.asp?id=87478&pt=n

That'll be handy for all the long term sick Larne council employees then. They'll be able to get a bit of retail therapy to cure the stress. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/7216552.stm

In all seriousness and all joking aside stress, depression, fatigue and mental health issues accounted for 20% of time taken off, the Audit Office found amongst Council employees NI-wide. I wonder how many of these symptoms are exacerbated as a result of furnishing large mortgages, debt repayments, prospects of facing repossession or a combination of all three?

Unemployment rises in NI

Unemployment in Northern Ireland has gone up by another 3,000, government figures revealed today.

http://u.tv/newsroom/indepth.asp?id=87512&pt=n

Almost 100 Post Offices to close across NI

http://u.tv/newsroom/indepth.asp?id=88325&pt=n

http://u.tv/newsroom/indepth.asp?id=88404&pt=n

Out of interest, who pays for these people?

13000 x benefits costs = lots

Is it us or the UK in general?

Whoa... isn't that close to 1% of the population of NI... extra!

This is going to get messy...

It seems that all you need is a change in attitude and all will be well.

I was flicking through the public sector job finder and I saw loads of jobs paying £12-£14K a year.

£12K a year has you taking home £200 a week.

So that's what's keeping house prices high ...all these highly paid jobs

My goodness! The idea of actually PRODUCING something to export! Scandalous! It is our divine right to make money by speculating on the price of houses and no mistake.

...or getting the begging cap off to Westminster again like we've doen for the last 30 years

Yeah, lets face it, why bother exporting stuff, cause then you have competition, which may actually involve you having to work hard and innovate!

Countless Building Jobs at Risk - BBC NI

The harsh realities of housing bubble economics coming to the fore. I know many building related tradesman (as I expect a few of us here do) and can see the impact of construction jobs drying up with my own eyes.

It leaves me with a sick feeling in my stomach tbh (as no doubt many on here feel); hopefully many of the small time (1-man band outfits etc.) will ride it out with regular customers and the like. Other tradesman working on crews will probably be seeking work further a field till things pick up here again.

Of course there are many corrections that will occur because of this in terms of specific trade and labour rates (in some specific disciplines more than others) and there is an argument to be made that now is a good time to get a house built, in terms of these costs - we just need land (with pp) to come down soon to enable this..


edit - btw I am talking single house builds here rather than developments - just my thoughts, but looking forward to some measure of sustainability

This is what I would love to do - buy some land, build my 'dream' house (which wouldn't be that extravegant at all), and that would be it for me. No housing 'ladder' to climb up.

Land is expensive though. It'll be interesitng to see how land values fall.

More tea, vicar? Not any more
http://u.tv/newsroom/indepth.asp?id=88538&pt=n

43 redundancies

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/7343196.stm

and another 45

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/7341976.stm

and this looks like an expensive loan, eventually paid back by guess who?

Should we be concerned about the cash injection into property:



We all know hat happened the last time NI became really confident about the economy - prices rose 56% in a year...

I suspect that they are referring to commercial property. However, I'm not sure we need any more commercial property. If they are talking about residential then it should be social housing as we have no actual shortage of places for people to live, just a shortage of places people can afford to live.

I think nominal house prices will bottom out here this year as I fear even as an OO (with no 2nd home, BTL etc.) N.I.s property prices will fall even more quickly ( percentage wise) than they rose until they find their true level-wherever that may be, followed by three years flat growth (representing further drops due to inflation.) It is realy worrying times for OO's like me who purchased in May 06 but need to sell now (fiancee no longer in N.I. and getting very upset that I haven't joined her!) My house has been on since June 07, with the price dropped by £20k by September 07 and since then it has been agreed for periods but has never completed! As such I wouldn't worry too much about what is a relatively small cash injection-it may just take away some of the pain of no more co-ownership but no more than that unless this investment encourages further investment which in turn leads to more, higher end well paid jobs!

edit: P.S. don't pick on me too much BB for my change of heart over the past few weeks!

Welcome back, we're all affected by the bubble too. Thats why we're here

The silver lining on the cloud is that at least NI should benefit from some of the tourist revenue that would otherwise have gone to the Republic this year.

Is this cash injection going to affect the wage packets of the average nurse, teacher, fireman, civil servant?

I don't know anyone of my friends that will get any of this money? Though it will help with employment.

Property will still be seen as a bad buy for several years.

So the IMF believe that the UK housing market will follow the American market. But you disagree with them?

Can I live on your planet? It is so much nicer than the one I live on!


Sorry to hear about the problems you are having.

My girlfriend didn't think that all this would affect her. Her mortgage resets next year and I sincerely doubt that it will be cheaper

For this to be true, it requires that the worldwide economic situation improves. This link is basically unavoidable unless NI finds an incredible source of money such as that we would have were we to suddenly to find a huge oil reserve! So I would be intrigued to know what facts make you think that the global economic situation is going to undergo this improvement...

I'm not disagreeing with with the potential drops the IMF have warned of, I just think it is going to happen a whole lot quicker here as N.I. people will have seen what is happening in America, Ireland, Spain, etc. and thus I think that nominal house prices here will fall even more sharply than they rose! Then I suspect they will find a more sustainable level in nominal terms the start of next year but will still be falling for years to come in real terms due to inflation (which I think will continue to rise despite what the official figures may say-anyone bought oil, petrol, bread or milk, etc. recently???)

I've tried everything to get rid of this damn house-dropped the asking price substantially and ahead of the competition, accepted lower offers, etc. without managing to ever complete. I cannot even change to an investment mortgage as of Thursday as the rates are so damn high on any new mortgages now despite the three IR cuts and come with substantial arrangement fees. The banks fecked the whole housing market up and now average people like me will probably pay the price either financially or personally.

Still I'm currently on a BOE tracker mortgage (fixed at 0.9% aboce BOE IR) which is a better rate than most people would receive these days. I fear for the rate they may offer your girlfriend next year-that's if they are even still lending money next year! Anyway good luck and hopefully it will work out Ok for her.

I just think they are going to drop so fast they will hit the bottem sooner than expected here-just like they rose at a ridiculous pace!

Thanks

Dude, I'm sorry about the position you are in. Views can be expressed rather robustly on here sometimes and that may sometimes cause pain for those suffering due to what we are all going through.

I really wish that nobody had to suffer, but the course was set many many years ago. The current climate is merely a logical and inescapable conclusion of previous events.

Often people look for explanations when they suffer a setback - getting the right explanation is essential if the same mistake is to be avoided again. Other people look for someone to blame - understanding who caused the problem is essential to blame the right people. Our current problems were caused by inflation, in the true sense of the word - the expansion of the money and credit supply. The source of this money was overseas investors looking for a place to "grow" their money. Now that they have realised the risks are too high they are directing their money elsewhere - unfortunately that is into commodities; food and energy are the two that affect us most directly.

Having exploited us for profit by causing a housing bubble, they are now exploiting us and the rest of the world by driving up the price of food and energy. There was no shortage of genuine supply for housing, just speculative demand caused by cheap credit. There is no shortage of food in the world (although too much of it is in the wrong place), but people are rioting because the price has mysteriously rocketed.

The next time you go to fill up your car, pay your gas bill or wonder why the price of rice has gone up think on this and don't blame us, the people in the shop or the woman in front of you in the queue. All of us are the victims of this, so who to blame? The banks exploited us for profit, the institutional investors did the same. The government are supposed to protect us and in this they have failed. They all deserve blame.