Belfast shipyard Harland and Wolff may close, despite the successful result of an arbitration hearing in London last week. But its difficulties have tended to obscure a good year for some of the principal firms in Northern Ireland's engineering sector.
The British government's document, Strategy 2010, presented last year, identified engineering as one of five sectors with an uncertain future, along with agri-food, food processing, clothing and textiles, and construction. The sector employs around 30,000 and has a turnover of £2.6 billion sterling (€4.27 billion), which should reach £4 billion by the end of the decade. But while many smaller engineering firms find it increasingly difficult to compete, Northern Ireland is home to a few significant players in world markets. But Harland can no longer claim to be one. It will receive most of the £23 million it claimed from US oil firm Global Marine - along with hundreds of redundancies.
A shutdown would cost about £15 million, but with the yard having no firm orders and a monthly wage bill of around £2.5 million, that remains a possibility. The money from Global Marine is seen as no more than a means of buying time while the search for orders continues.
But elsewhere the prospects for Northern Ireland's engineering sector are brighter. The recent £27 million investment by electric power generator-makers FG Wilson will create around 500 jobs "across the whole spectrum of ability and academic achievement" in west Belfast. More than half will be at the firm's Springvale factory, with others at sites in Larne and Monkstown. Wilson, which already employs 2,500 in Northern Ireland, says it will recruit labourers and semiskilled personnel. Last summer, the firm became a wholly owned subsidiary of Caterpillar, the world's leading manufacturer of construction and mining equipment.
FG Wilson exports 90 per cent of the 300,000 generating sets it produces each year, and the recent investment is expected to double its current $500 million turnover.
First Minister Mr David Trimble said the investment, supported by a grant of £8.1 million from the Industrial Development Board, told other North American corporations that Northern Ireland was the right place for worldclass manufacturers.
This announcement came only weeks after another US company, TeleTech, said it would create up to 900 jobs at the industrial complex at Duncairn in north Belfast.
Meanwhile, Belfast aerospace firm Shorts, Northern Ireland's largest private sector employer, hopes to regain customer confidence after two months of industrial action.
Unions have urged Shorts to follow through on investment and job commitments. They also say management has to work to improve the firm's industrial relations.
"Now we need to sit down with the firm and repair and rebuild industrial relations," said Mr Bobby Carson of the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions.
Bombardier Aerospace vice-president Mr Michael Ryan said the past months had been difficult.
"There is a lot of work to be done to secure the long-term future of the company. It will not be easy, but we have the people and capabilities to help ensure the long-term success and growth, and we must now work together to achieve that," he said.
