By Chris Mellor
11th January 2009 08:02 GMT

As the shockwaves of Dell's dreaded but expected withdrawal from Limerick manufacturing reverberate around Ireland's mid-west region, some lessons are emerging. The big theme emerging in many reports and commentaries is that the boom in semi-skilled assembly line jobs is well and truly over.

There doesn't appear to be any other business likely to come to Ireland and employ 1,000 plus workers on an assembly line. It's cheaper to do it elsewhere, in a low-wage economy, and ship the goods to the geographies that would be served by an Irish base. For suppliers like Dell that need a responsive assembly/manufacturing operation in the EU, the accession of Poland and other east European countries into the EU was a godsend; for Ireland, it has been a disaster.

Where Dell is going other hi-tech employers may follow - Intel has a chip plant in Ireland, and HP makes printer cartridges there too. For both of them the annual cost of an Irish worker will be more than the annual cost of a Polish worker. They too will be looking at the numbers and doing a what-if-we-moved-to-Poland spreadsheet calculation. The EU wants a level playing field, and limits what member countries do in the way of bribing businesses to come to them via grants, subsidies and tax concessions.

Unfortunately the EU does not enforce such a level playing field in pay, and that means new and low labour cost countries that join, like Poland, enjoy a few years of competitive employment advantage until their labour costs are equalised with the rest of the EU. Ireland knows this, which is why government ministers and Irish Development Agency (IDA) staff are talking of keeping Dell R&D jobs in Ireland and hoping to expand them.