End of the line for Seagate
Thursday, 25 September 2008
Dejected Seagate employees as they left the meeting in October, when they were told of the factory’s closure.
THE Mayor of Limavady, Brenda Chivers, has said this Thursday, which sees the last day of production at Limavady's Seagate plant, will be a sad day for the town.
Though production will cease this week, staff will remain employed and be paid until October 31.
Mayor Chivers said: "This is a sad week for the town. Seagate has provided so much employment for so long, and even though we've know for some time that this was going to happen, it is still a major blow.
“I think the economy will feel it sooner rather than later, redundancy pay will only last so long and I'm sure people will be very careful with it.
“It will be a tough Christmas for a lot of people, worrying about unemployment, paying for oil, petrol, mortgages, and of course, with the credit crunch, there aren't many jobs out there.
“There is inevitably going to be a knock on effect and it is a worrying time for the borough.
“When people lose there jobs there is also the risk of depression and other emotional problems and no-one should be afraid to ask for help, no matter what form that help may take."
Plant manager, Dr William O'Kane, said: "The atmosphere has been mixed, but obviously it has been fairly down beat, this is an end of an era and there is of course the uncertainty for people wondering what comes next.
“However, Seagate designed an outplacement programme whereby we employed consultants to help people prepare for life beyond Seagate.
“There were one - two day workshops, where employees learned things like interview skills and how to write CVs. There were inhouse training courses.
“Over the last three months there has been a fully staffed resource centre on site with a computer suite for job searches or online applications, one to one meetings with consultants and a training area.
“Seagate also provided people with up to £500 training allowance towards courses they were interested in and there has been a good uptake on that so far.
“As well as that there have been other things that Seagate have supported such as finance seminars and pension seminars. We worked with other agencies like EGSA DELL and the NW Regional College. And we also hosted job fairs to which various recruitment agencies were invited.
Dr O'Kane concluded: "For the last ten years Seagate has provided great employment and good benefits and any closure like this is of course a sad day. But unfortunately the closure was unavoidable given cost pressures."
