Dell: L'irlanda raccoglie i cocci e conta le perdite.

The Register ci propone un articolo che esprime senza mezzi termini quello che era gia' chiaro a tutti:

a) Mille operai per una catena di montaggio costano meno in un paese emergente

b) Meglio avere tante aziende che impiegano una cinquantina di persone che affidarsi a una o due aziende enormi che ne impiegano qualche migliaio

c) Per l'irlanda e' finita l'era delle "tute blu" della catena di montaggio e si deve aprire quella dei colletti bianchi, ma le universita' si devono adeguare visto che il numero di laureati comunque non e' sufficiente.

Un estratto:

The big theme emerging in many reports and commentaries is that the boom in semi-skilled assembly line jobs is well and truly over. There doesn't appear to be any other business likely to come to Ireland and employ 1,000 plus workers on an assembly line. It's cheaper to do it elsewhere, in a low-wage economy, and ship the goods to the geographies that would be served by an Irish base.

[...]

For suppliers like Dell that need a responsive assembly/manufacturing operation in the EU, the accession of Poland and other east European countries into the EU was a godsend; for Ireland, it has been a disaster. Where Dell is going other hi-tech employers may follow - Intel has a chip plant in Ireland, and HP makes printer cartridges there too.

[...]

For both of them the annual cost of an Irish worker will be more than the annual cost of a Polish worker. They too will be looking at the numbers and doing a what-if-we-moved-to-Poland spreadsheet calculation. The EU wants a level playing field, and limits what member countries do in the way of bribing businesses to come to them via grants, subsidies and tax concessions.

[...]

Unfortunately the EU does not enforce such a level playing field in pay, and that means new and low labour cost countries that join, like Poland, enjoy a few years of competitive employment advantage until their labour costs are equalised with the rest of the EU.

[...]the total EU demand for Dell computers now only needs one plant, and the one in Poland is it. When Irish workers benefitted from Ireland being a lower-cost place to put plants than the UK or France or Germany, they sipped their Guinness with relish. Now that Poland is doing to Ireland what Ireland did to other western European countries, they are crying into their beer. It's just how it goes.

[...]

A dawning realisation in Ireland is that it will have to expand university and technical college education. If it's a white collar future and not an assembly-line one, then that means the current generation of semi-skilled workers have had it. There's more of them than the country currently needs and they'll have to do the best they can whilst the country educates their children for the hi-tech R&D jobs.

Qui l'articolo completo.