SHANNON INFORMATION technology (IT) company Avocent has confirmed plans to cut its workforce by over a third with the loss of 57 jobs, while seven further staff members face redundancy at its Dublin office.
The firm is a wholly owned subsidiary of Avocent Corporation in Huntsville, Alabama, USA.
The company, whose customers include industry leaders such as Bank of America, Boeing, Intel, Microsoft, Nokia and Compaq, has started talks on redundancy terms with staff affected.
The company delivers IT infrastructure management products via hardware and software solutions.
Last July, the chief executive of the Avocent Corporation expressed his concern that the Open Skies policy could affect air access from the US to Shannon. Last August, the company also warned that the loss of Aer Lingus's Shannon to Heathrow service could have an adverse effect on the operation.
The job losses will affect Avocent's research and development functions, which were grown indigenously at Shannon.
The functions of Avocent's Dublin office will also be transferred to the US, leading to seven redundancies as part of the restructuring measures. It is proposed that the redundancies will start in August and continue until December.
In a statement, the company said the job losses were part of a series of actions designed to enhance competitiveness, improve efficiency and reduce the company's cost structure across its European locations.
"The reductions will affect certain research and development, marketing and technical support functions, as well as the transfer of Asia operations from Shannon to the company's recently established regional hub in Singapore," the statement added.
Avocent senior vice president, and managing director of Avocent International at Shannon, Kieran MacSweeney, said: "It is with great regret that we have had to effect these changes as we had grown organically at Shannon and were extremely proud of our achievements in that regard, but significant challenges have arisen that we have had to adapt to."
He said Shannon will remain a support centre for services including finance, human resources, IT, customer support, professional services, quality, operations and distribution.
"We look forward to consolidating our presence here now that these difficult decisions have been made.
"At this moment staff whose positions are affected are absolutely foremost in our thoughts. They have displayed exemplary levels of quality and flexibility throughout their employment and we will provide whatever support we can for them in their efforts to secure new positions," Mr MacSweeney said.
Clare Fine Gael TD Joe Carey said the job losses were "another hammer blow" to the region.
"The mid-west is being hung out to dry economically at present. Government has facilitated a bleed of employment and industry from the mid-west by tarnishing the image of an area once seen as good for business. It did this through the Shannon-Heathrow debacle. And it did this by having a total lack of regard for regional transport and communications infrastructure," Mr Carey said.