Two companies have today bucked the economic trend by announcing jobs in Belfast and Dundalk today.
The Irish telecom Intune Networks, which builds optical platforms for video and IT services, announced it is to provide almost 80 positions at a R&D centre in Belfast.
Intune has recruited 34 people for the centre in the Sandy Row area and said it was starting a recruitment drive for a further 43. The jobs are in the highly skilled information and communication technologies sector and will all be in place by 2010.
The R&D centre will focus on improving high speed internet connectivity in cities and towns. Company CEO Tim Fritzley said work at the centre had the potential to solve some of the largest cost-performance problems facing the telecommunications world.
Elsewhere, it was announced that dozens of highly skilled jobs are to be created with the opening of a chemical consulting company in Dundalk.
Chinese firm CIRS said it will be looking to recruit up to 26 science graduates at its new EU headquarters at Finnabair Business Park in the Co Louth town.
CIRS (Chemical Inspection and Regulation Service), based in Hangzhou, China, said it will recruit graduates over the next year as part of the taxpayer-funded investment. The company specialises in helping other firms comply with chemical regulations.
Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern, officially opening the offices, said the company’s decision to locate in Ireland reinforced the country’s reputation for skills in this area. “CIRS provides another superb example that Ireland is very much open for business across all sectors and is very positively viewed by international investors,” he said.
Today's announcements came as another Belfast-based IT company, Andor Technology, revealed operating profits for the last six months up by more than 100 per cent.
Andor Technology, which makes sophisticated cameras for use in research said sales to the US market were up 60 per cent and that it had just signed a new design contract in the United States worth more than $2 million.
The company was created out of the physics department of Queen’s University.