For a growing number of people the heady days of the boom are gone. Factory closures and lay-offs now dominating the news as multinational companies announce they are moving their manufacturing elsewhere, going east where the cost of production is cheaper.
Where’s My Job Gone is a two-part documentary series which looks at how job migration and globalization are effecting the daily lives of Irish people around the country by following Irish workers to the countries where their jobs have gone, it discovers what these countries have to offer that we now longer have in Ireland.
Programme One deals with the pressures that have come to bear on labour intensive manufacturing industries which are having to compete with lower cost countries in Eastern Europe and beyond.
This programme follows Mags Stone, an ex-factory worker and John Sexton a factory manager both of whom were in long-term employment in the manufacting industry but who lost their jobs in recent years as their employers moved their manufacturing to Eastern Europe. The documentary follows John and Mags as they travel across Eastern European to see where their jobs have gone and meet the people who now do their jobs and how their recent manufacting boom in has affected their lives.
Programme Two deals with Ireland and its ambitions with respect to creating a knowledge economy fueled by higher value jobs. As Ireland moves up the value chain who are going to be the winners and the losers in the changing job’s market? How well set are we to compete with countries, such as India, in knowledge based industries. To find out, programme two brings us to the IT hub of Bangalore in southern India.