Dell is set to become one of Poland's largest employers with a €120 million investment plan for the central city of Lodz.Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper yesterday reported that the Poles had beaten off competition from Slovakia for the investment, expected to create around 12,000 in-house and sub-contractor jobs.
The new manufacturing plant will be a huge boost to Lodz, one of Poland's unemployment blackspots with 48,000 people looking for work. The newspaper said that Dell was attracted to the city because of the large student population and low labour costs, a third lower than in Warsaw or Wroclaw.
The average industrial wage in Poland is 2648 zlotych (€677) a month.
Both Dell and Poland's Office for Foreign Investment and Information have declined to comment on the report, though Dell has said it plans to open a central European facility soon.
The new plant could have a knock-on effect at Dell's Limerick-based manufacturing base. The Limerick base employs 3,000 people and exports computer equipment across Europe.
