Last October the company announced it was going to sell its Thomson Learning business, and today's announcement confirms that production will shift from Limerick to India.

Pat Delaney of IBEC commented after the announcement of a review by Thomson Scientific and Healthcare in January, that global companies are pulling out of Ireland because it's too expensive: "It's costing them more to produce their products and they're getting less on foreign markets.

"Unless we do something radical we'll be reading business obituaries like this every day of the week."

Thomson has approximately 40,500 employees and provides services in approximately 130 countries. The Corporation's common shares are listed on the New York and Toronto stock exchanges.

Thomson Scientific is a business of The Thomson Corporation. Its information solutions assist professionals at every stage of research and development—from discovery to analysis to product development and distribution.