Apple loses additional 200 jobs in Cork

Apple's manufacturing plant in Cork, Ireland, is to lose up to 200 workers on top of the 150 redundancies announced last Wednesday.

As part of strategy to refocus its worldwide product line, Apple is closing down the circuit board (PCB) division of the Cork plant. The company offered unions a package for workers wanting to take voluntary redundancy, which was accepted on Thursday.

A spokesman for Irish ministry for enterprise, trade and employment said: "Unions were negotiating the voluntary redundancy package, they overwhelmingly voted in favour of the offer." He added that part of the negotiation between Irish foreign minister, Mary Harney and Apple executives last week in the US involved "bringing different aspects of product manufacturing to Cork and that the iMac will soon be produced there as well".

A spokesman for Apple in Ireland said he expected all 200 of the voluntary redundancy offers to be accepted. The remaining 250 staff will be retrained and moved to other divisions of the plant.

Singapore's Natsteel Electronics said last week that it has signed a letter of intent to buy Apple's PCB assembly equipment in Cork for $11.9m (£7.2m).