Fears for further job losses at Derry's largest employer: Seagate to reduce global workforce by 14%

There are fears for further job losses at Derry’s largest employer.

Seagate Technologies, which employs over 1,300 people at its Springtown plant in Derry, says it intends to reduce its global workforce by 6,500 - roughly 14% by the end of next year.

Seventy workers lost their jobs at the company’s Derry plant when the company announced a five per cent cut in global jobs in May last.

It is not known how the latest announcement will affect the Derry workforce.

Seagate, which develops and manufactures read-write heads for hard disk drives, came to Northern Ireland in 1993, building its Springtown plant in just nine months, and today employs over 1,300 people.

Former SDLP leader John Hume was instrumental in persuading the company's management team to visit, set up and invest in his home city at a time when few international companies were prepared even to consider opening premises here.

The company's products are used to help people to store, share and protect their digital content, from the videos, music and documents shared on social networks, to servers forming the backbone of cloud-based computing and our personal desktop and notebook computers.