Up to 400 jobs are to be generated at a new manufacturing plant in Waterford. Nypro Waterford will initially be assembling products for a major client in the computer industry.
Nypro currently employs over 400 people at its factory in Bray, Co Wicklow. The company is now extending a 25,000 square foot advance factory on the IDA industrial park in Waterford and is setting up a manufacturing and assembly plant.
The factory is expected to be operational by June and will employ up to 400 people within the next two to three years.
After a number of high profile industrial setbacks last year, the jobs news is a timely boost for the area. The company is a 50% Irish-owned joint venture with Nypro Incorporated, which is based in the US.
The new Waterford operation will be highly skills-based, requiring a high ratio of technicians to general operatives, and the company is in discussions with the Waterford Institute of Technology with a view to maximising opportunities for graduates.
* The industrial diamond manufacturer De Beers, which is based in Shannon, has announced it is to shed 128 of its 650 staff from April.
The company, which has been in business in Shannon for 40 years, has blamed increasing competition in the market, especially from the Far East, and rapid price declines across most of its products.
De Beers says it hopes to achieve the reduction in employment by offering a combination of voluntary redundancy and early retirement packages.
De Beers is the world leader in the manufacture of super hard materials for industrial drills, grinders and saws. Shannon is the largest of its plants in Europe and South Africa.
