[Article] eBay and PayPal to create up to 800 jobs in Dublin

Victor

eBay and PayPal to create up to 800 jobs in Dublin
From:ireland.com
Tuesday, 16th September, 2003

Up to 800 jobs are to be created in Dublin by online auctioneer eBay and its payment subsidiary PayPal.

Dublin will be the location for PayPal's European headquarters and eBay's second European customer support center.

In its first facility outside the US, PayPal will establish headquarters in Blanchardstown to support its expansion into Europe. The Dublin headquarters will host PayPal's European customer service and fraud prevention as well as the European management team.

PayPal believes that its Dublin employee base will grow to approximately 400 employees by the end of 2005.

In addition, eBay will establish a second European customer service centre in Dublin to support users in Britain, Ireland and other European countries. eBay expects to have 300-400 employees working in this facility by the end of 2005.

I wonder if they will insist on paying thier staff through US bank accounts

ToxicPaddy

They are supposed to be taking over the old WorldPort hq..

Fab building, but I think even 800 staff would feel lost in that place.. its bloody huge.....

RicardoSmith

Why do they need 800 people? What will they be doing?

Victor

Originally posted by RicardoSmith
Why do they need 800 people? What will they be doing?

Probably running their European operation from here because of VAT rules.

Repli

I also heard that alienware, yahoo and google are setting up in Ireland.. good news for IT graduates

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by Victor
Probably running their European operation from here because of VAT rules.

But what will 800 people be doing. Wjat kinda jobs are these? Lots of these companies make out like they will need oodles of grad and IT people, wereas in actually fact most of them are assembly plants and mainly only employ manual labourers and line workers/techncians at relative low wages. The media make out its a huge boost to the IT industry whereas its not really.

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by Repli
I also heard that alienware, yahoo and google are setting up in Ireland.. good news for IT graduates

Is it really though. What kinda jobs do thay have?

Victor

Looks like mostly customer services, accounts and admin types
(i.e. call centre). There should be some tech in it, but I'm guessing the number is closer to 20 than 800.

http://home.eircom.net/content/unison/national/1507527?view=Eircomnet

800 new jobs for capital as web firm snubs rural carrot
From:The Irish Independent
Wednesday, 17th September, 2003

WEST Dublin is set to become one of the biggest players in the global cyber marketplace with 800 new jobs to be created in the area.

The news that auction website eBay and its secure on-line payments subsidiary PayPal are to create 800 jobs in Blanchardstown by 2005 is a welcome boost to the area which was last week left reeling after electric component company 3Com announced 640 jobs were to go.

While welcoming the announcement, Tanaiste Mary Harney said it was a pity that eBay had not taken a larger grants package to locate outside Dublin.

A spokesman for IDA Ireland said it showed the company a number of locations in Athlone and in the Border Midland and West (BMW) region. But, despite the fact that much larger grants were available for the regions, the company opted for Dublin. He said only a "token grant" was available for Dublin.

Following the negotiations with IDA Ireland, it was announced that PayPal will establish its European headquarters in Blanchardstown, where 400 of the new jobs will be created in hosting PayPal's European customer services and financial services functions for the European market.

And next year eBay will establish its second customer support centre in Europe to provide services for its customers in the UK, Ireland and other European countries. This will employ up to 400 people by the end of 2005.

Tanaiste Mary Harney pointed out that added to the recent announcements by Google and Overture, Ireland was now home to three of the world's highest profile internet companies.

In the PayPal operations the main activity will be involved directly in customer service, fraud prevention and operations, requiring a range of skills similar to those in large financial institutions and the use of complex software tools to detect fraud.

IDA Ireland spokesman Colm Donlon said there was no doubt that we would see more job announcements by the end of the year. And he said they had a number of projects in the pipeline and would be pushing to have more major global companies to locate their shared services HQ here.

Despite the good news for Blanchardstown, the announcement came on the same day that a survey pointed to Irish employment expectations being among the weakest in Europe. According to the Manpower Employment Outlook Survey, employment confidence has fallen significantly with a negative outlook for the rest of the year.

The survey showed that Ireland and Germany are now the only two countries in Europe showing a negative employment outlook, with Ireland showing the greatest quarter-on-quarter change.

Director of the Small Firms Association Pat Delaney, said the overall picture was "dire" and said notified redundancies for this year would be higher than last year.

The SFA boss said last year there were 25,368 redundancies notified to the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. Up to the end of August this year the figure stood at 17,590 but Mr Delaney warned that by the end of the year the figure would exceed 2002's total.

ToxicPaddy

Google have already started setting up their hosting equipment here in Ireland in a certain hosting company so it looks like Google are definites, but Im not sure about the others.

Tox

blorg

Originally posted by RicardoSmith
most of them are assembly plants and mainly only employ manual labourers and line workers/techncians at relative low wages. The media make out its a huge boost to the IT industry whereas its not really.

I'm just trying to visualise Paypal's 800 manual labourers working away on their assembly line...

Raskolnikov

Originally posted by RicardoSmith
But what will 800 people be doing. Wjat kinda jobs are these? Lots of these companies make out like they will need oodles of grad and IT people, wereas in actually fact most of them are assembly plants and mainly only employ manual labourers and line workers/techncians at relative low wages. The media make out its a huge boost to the IT industry whereas its not really.

I agree completely, most of the jobs that Google offered here were accounts, call centre type of thing with a few jobs for IT consultants. It'd be pretty safe to say that there were no jobs generated for IT grads.

damnyanks

Work is work stop moaning

Alienware already have their factory in Dundalk or some place.

RicardoSmith

Work is work. What kinda of a comment is that? If work and not money, is whats important maybe you'd come over and paint my house for free. You'll have a blast. All of these jobs will go east once the grants and subsidies are gone. Its happening all over the IT sector. People working in these places are not building skills with a marketable value. When the company goes they'll be stuffed and competing with a sweat shop in asia. Which Ireland can't compete with.

damnyanks

Thats not what I meant and unless your thick you know that.

If you are unemployed and need a job badly you wont fuss about the possibility of being employed at some form of legal wage (Minimum wage)

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by damnyanks
Thats not what I meant and unless your thick you know that.

If you are unemployed and need a job badly you wont fuss about the possibility of being employed at some form of legal wage (Minimum wage)

Keeping focused on the short term view has got this country where its currently at. I don't think thats too clever. But I'm probably thick so what do I know. To go all gooey over 100 new jobs a year when we are losing 500 a week seems that someones not playing with a full deck.

Do you think that this anonuncement indicates a new policy by the IDA or Govt that is likely to radically improve our econonomy and stem future unemployment? Personally I don't so. it won't even help the people from 3Com. This announcement means squat really. People should wake up and realise this.

If you are telling me 800 jobs are 800 jobs. Well thanks I got that from the title of the thread and I can do the Math. I thought the idea was discuss the announcent Not point out the obvious.

No offence and aplogies if I've missintrepreted your post.

blorg

Originally posted by RicardoSmith
All of these jobs will go east once the grants and subsidies are gone.

AFAIK, Ebay/Paypal aren't getting any significant grant/subsidy as they weren't willing to locate outside Dublin (this is actually in the article now that I re-read it). This is standard IDA policy now.

Now Ricardo, you can hardly hold to the point that all the jobs with IT multinationals in Ireland are crap jobs - that just simply isn't the case. And you haven't come up with any solid evidence as to the nature of the Ebay/Paypal jobs, you have just decided yourself that they must be crap. It is perfectly possible that (at least some of) these are decent jobs. Maybe they have seen how ebid.ie has revolutionised auctions in Ireland and want to learn from them.

One way or the other, 800 new jobs is a good thing - it would still be a good thing if a widget manufacturer started up with 800 factory jobs, no?

RicardoSmith

I was referring to the favorable tax regime. Fair enough I dunno what the jobs will be. I never said all the jobs with IT multinationals are crap jobs. Though many of them are now that you mention it. My point is that in the long term these jobs are not sustainable in Ireland when you are competing in a global economy. Theres too much patting ourselves on the back when these kinda operations setup here.

I wonder will any of ebay's phone lines fail the eircom line test for broad band?

MarcusGarvey

It seems Ebay were not going to actually settle in Ireland because of the pushing of the gobsheens in IDA that they not go to Dublin.

An integral part of that story, however, was that Ireland nearly lost this important and high-profile project when both the IDA and government tried to strong-arm eBay into going to a rural location (reportedly Athlone, in today's reports), something which drove them to a serious and nearly exit-stage-left level of annoyance and frustration.

More on Karlins Weblog

These are going to be tech support and customer service jobs mostly. Bit of a waste of IT grads really.

RicardoSmith

Tech support and customer service jobs are exactly the jobs that are being pulled to low cost centers in India and the far east. The IDA and the Govt are not trying to encourage growth of industry here. They are only interested in turning it into some kinda political football. Which is why we say it on the news for a couple of days with no real hard facts about it. We really need to grow our R&D incestment here and get companies doing their R&D here. Isn't there some EU directive that member states should have 3% of GNP put aside for R&D. Ireland has something like 1%.

eth0_

Originally posted by RicardoSmith

I wonder will any of ebay's phone lines fail the eircom line test for broad band?

lol, why would ebay want broadband?

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by eth0_
lol, why would ebay want broadband?

Dunno is it any good?

Victor

Originally posted by eth0_
lol, why would ebay want broadband?

I think what he menas is like a 100 mbps line (or whatever) to connect to their customers.

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by Victor
I think what he menas is like a 100 mbps line (or whatever) to connect to their customers.

Would that be quicker than high speed, or is that called light speed?

eth0_

Originally posted by Victor
I think what he menas is like a 100 mbps line (or whatever) to connect to their customers.

SHE!

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by eth0_
SHE!

The spellling rounnd herr is terriably.