Cork has had to contend with another jobs cuts announcement, with the news on Friday of the planned closure in September of Elba Office Products in Youghal, East Cork, with the loss of 55 jobs.

Elba Office Products is closing its operation in Youghal because of the cost of doing business there has become too expensive and the company's financial losses, have no prospect of improvement. The company says its 55 staff will be made redundant over the next few months.

This is the latest element of bad news in Cork, following on from announced closures, sales and restructurings at Motorola in Cork City, FCI in Fermoy and Pfizer, in Ringaskiddy on the  western shore of Cork Harbour and Cork plants  at Little Island and Loughbeg.

In neighbouring Limerick, Thomson Scientific and Healthcare, said on Jan 31st that it will outsource 200 jobs to India.

On Thursday, Canadian telco equipment supplier Nortel Networks Corp announced plans save $400m a year by cutting its workforce by 2,900, or nearly 10% of the total, and replace a further 1,000 with staff from low-cost locations.

Nortel has 975 Irish staff in Dublin, Belfast and Galway.

Alcatel-Lucent, which like Nortel, is a manufacturer of telco equipment,  announced on Friday that it plans  cutting 12,500 jobs globally over the next three years. The company says it has not yet decided which regions will be affected by the 15% reduction of the workforce. It employs more almost 400 staff in Ireland.

Meanwhile Irish foreign exchange software firm Cognotec confirmed that it is is carrying out a restructuring of its operations and some redundancies are likely. Cognotec employs 195 people worldwide, with about 70% of its staff based in Dublin.