A Dublin-based, high-tech company, which plans to employ 300 people by the Year 2000, has warned that the skills shortage may jeopardise its success. A glance at the Website of Xilinx Ireland (www.xilinx.com) underscores the impact of the unavailability of skilled staff.

According to the managing director of the company, Mr Paul McCambridge, a deciding factors in it for establishing in Ireland was the promise of plenty of experienced graduates to put teams together. Today, this is proving increasingly difficult.

"Contrary to popular opinion, I think the wave of ex-Pats coming home has stopped, because God knows, I've rang anyone I know over in the States to see if they'll come back as have most of my friends. The flood is over, there are lots of Irish people over there who are settled with great jobs and families, and simply view Ireland as a nice holiday destination."

The biggest problem in finding PhD's and high-level people to drive the business, says Mr McCambridge, is competing with well-known multinationals for their attention. To try and counter this, Xilinx has been working with universities to increase its profile at third level through scholarships, collaborations and investment programmes. For example, the engineering design laboratory at UCD is Xilinx funded.

Because the semiconductor industry is cyclical by nature, Mr McCambridge acknowledges the pitfalls in being unable to offer new employees the job-for-life scenario. But, he says, "while this industry can't offer stability, we can continue to ensure very good opportunities in well-paid jobs in a very exciting sector of electronics".