Waterford Wedgwood is to shed 1,400 of its workforce including 100 in Ireland saying the September 11th attacks have compounded already weak trading conditions.
Also today, airline maintenance company FLS Aerospace has announced it will cut 150 jobs at its facility in Dublin airport. The company currently employs some 1,800 people in Dublin.
The Irish job losses at FLSA are part of a cost-cutting plan which will see 900 jobs cut from the group’s worldwide operations.
It is anticipated that the majority of the job losses will take place in 2002.
The Waterford Wedgwood group also announced the appointment of Mr Tony O’Reilly junior as its new chief executive.
Sales for the ten months to October 31st were 4.5 per cent below 2000 levels, Waterford said. The events of September 11th had an immediate impact, with a severe downturn in demand in the second half of the month, which led to core September sales being 15 per cent below September 2000; this decline eased a little in October.
As a result Waterford said it has been forced to restructure its businesses worldwide to lower operating costs, reduce capacity, improve factory efficiency, reduce inventories and stimulate sales through increased marketing spend.
Waterford will close its crystal manufacturing plant in Stourbridge in the West Midlands and rationalise production at the group's other crystal and ceramic manufacturing plants in Britain, Ireland and Germany.
The company also plans to write off its Millennium range of crystal at a cost of euro € 12 million and close 40 of its retail shops.
The company will take a charge of € 60 million, which includes a cash outlay of € 31 million.
While the outlook for November is better, the group believes that worldwide trading conditions in all consumer goods categories will remain challenging in the near term.
The board of Waterford Wedgwood also annnounceed that Mr Redmond O'Donoghue has been appointed group chief executive officer with immediate effect. He was formerly president and chief Operating Officer.