American-owned electronics and mobile phone company Motorola confirmed yesterday it is to close its Cork operation with the loss of 330 jobs, following a consultation process with workers.
Motorola announced on January 29th it was going to engage in a month-long consultation process with staff at its plant at Mahon in the city to see if they could find any viable alternative to closing the plant and losing the jobs.
However the company issued a statement yesterday evening confirming that following this consultation, it was unable to come up with "a viable alternative for continuing Motorola operations at the site" and that it was closing the plant.
Motorola will retain a small number of employees - believed to be up to 20 - who will continue to work for the company in Cork but who will operate from their own homes.
Discussions with individual employees will begin immediately and Motorola expects that the majority of the 330 workers being made redundant will leave by the end of May.
Fears had been growing for the future of the Cork plant ever since Motorola chief executive Ed Zander announced in January that he planned to shed some 3,500 of the company's 70,000 employees worldwide in an effort to reduce its corporate cost structure by $400 million.
The cost-cutting exercise was undertaken to boost profits after Motorola saw its margins drop dramatically when it was forced to cut prices to boost sales and maintain its position as second in the market place after market leader, Nokia.
The announcement is a particularly bad blow as the jobs were of the high-tech, high-value nature.