General Semiconductor Inc manufactures circuit boards, electronic boards covered with veins of electronic circuits, which are often used to hold most of the internal components of computers and bind them together - the brains and body of the machine, if you will. Most PC users never see these hidden circuit boards unless they decide on an upgrade.
Companies like GSI are the hidden bits of the technology industry here. While the IDA and Government proudly list the big technology names - the Intels, IBMs, Microsofts, Hewlett-Packards and so on - the Irish technology universe is full of such companies, most smaller than GSI. Many are home-grown companies, based in the regions.
They are the sub-suppliers to the technology industry, companies that make the essential components that disappear into other products bearing wellknown names. Sub-suppliers are crucial, if low-end, job-providers throughout Irish industry. For the most part, these positions are not highly skilled.
Therefore they are also at the most vulnerable end of the industry. In a downturn, these jobs are easily cut or moved elsewhere. In the case of GSI, about half of the jobs once held by the Macroom workers will be transferred to East Asia.
Such cuts are the most difficult to prevent or curtail. The 1980s brought many such job losses here, if primarily in industries other than technology.
Ironically, GSI would have been at the forefront of the government's shift towards encouraging the development of higher-value technology jobs in the 1980s. The company arrived in Macroom in 1982, when circuit boards offered a better future than fading industries such as textiles.
Now electronics manufacturing is seen as low-end. The State has encouraged the growth of a "knowledge economy" since the 1980s, based on highly-skilled technology jobs such as Intel's microchip manufacture and research and development.
Nonetheless, the arrival of this next wave of jobs is reliant on the existence of companies like GSI. Sub-suppliers form the bedrock for the knowledge industry, providing the components and services needed by giants such as IBM, Dell and Microsoft. The IDA markets the existence of our many sub-suppliers as a key attraction of locating in the Republic.
But in the kind of economic downturn we are experiencing, the sub-suppliers are extremely vulnerable, hidden victims of the drop in demand for computers and the withering of the technology industry.
The loss of a company such as Gateway has knock-on effects, walloping electronics parts suppliers, plastic-case makers, printers of computer manuals, CD-ROM makers who provide the disks that come with a new PC.
Sub-suppliers to the computer industry are especially exposed. A drop in demand for the machines from consumers and businesses is coupled with a raging price war between manufacturers.
That means manufacturers will be putting pressure on their sub-suppliers for lower prices for parts, and shopping around for lower-cost providers to which they may shift their patronage. Or they may pull contracts entirely. The loss of a Gateway-sized contract in the Irish market would be devastating to a small sub-supplier.
But the Government will not want to discourage the development of sub-suppliers. Although the jobs are not as well paid or well protected as in other areas of the industry, they are an important part of the technology ecosystem here.
Likewise, the State should not panic at the loss of such jobs. While every job loss is a tragedy, we need a solid sub-supply network as much as we need the high-value companies that rely on their products.
In tough economic times, the Government can best secure jobs at all levels by keeping a level head, continuing to develop sound business and development policies, and investing significantly in research that will produce tomorrow's companies, products and jobs.
The one certainty of an economic downturn is that it will be followed by an upturn, and the State needs to develop its intellectual and industrial capital for that future.