On December 28, 2013, I wrote:
On Dec. 13 Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne delivered
a big corporate kiss under the mistletoe to Cisco System’s Canada division.
Taxpayers will dole out $220 million to a company that, worldwide, had revenues of $49 billion in fiscal 2013.
In return, Cisco promised to create “up tp” 1,700 high-tech jobs.
“Cisco profit soars 56%” is the headline of an
August 2012 CNN story. Huh. I wonder if Ontario taxpayers will see their
incomes soar by the same amount. [See: http://gerry-stopthebull.blogspot.ca/search?updated-min=2013-01-01T00:00:00-05:00&updated-max=2014-01-01T00:00:00-05:00&max-results=15]
Well, on August 16. 2014 the Sun News Network reported that, “The
Ontario government has been advised by Cisco that the company’s planned layoff of 6,000 employees will not impact its commitment to create
1,700 jobs in the province. Hmm, according to my math, that’s a net loss of
4,300 jobs. Way t’ go, Kathleen Wynne!
|
BY ANTONELLA ARTUSO
,QUEEN'S PARK BUREAU CHIEF
TORONTO - The
Ontario government has been advised by Cisco that the company’s planned layoff
of 6,000 employees will not impact its commitment to create 1,700 jobs in the
province, Economic Development Minister Brad Duguid says.
Ontario taxpayers will
invest $220 million in the giant information and communications technology
firm, almost $130,000 per job, even as it embarks on a plan to cut its global
workforce.
“We’ve been in touch
with Cisco and I can assure you we’ve been told that there’ll be little if any
impact at all in Ontario,” Duguid said Friday. “It will not in any way affect
our partnership to create those 1,700 new jobs.
“It’s important to know
that on all of these partnerships we have strict performance measures in place
that holds companies to account for the number of jobs and the timetable for
the creation of those jobs,” he said.
If the company reneges
on its obligation to create jobs, the public dollars will not flow, he said.
NDP MPP Wayne Gates
released a copy of that agreement Friday with the job creation schedule and
penalties redacted, and he called on the government to make public the full
contract public.
Ontarians need to know
that the government has signed an ironclad job creation guarantee before
handing out funds, he said.
“We don’t want to see
public dollars go to companies closing up shops and leaving people out of
work,” Gates said.
Cisco Canada announced
in December that it would make a major investment in research and development
facilities in Ontario, creating up to 1,700 high tech job mainly in Ottawa and
Toronto.
The province has shed
hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs - a trend that began even before
the recession of 2008-09 - and has been looking for ways to boost job creation
in well-paying sectors such as high tech.
To
read the full article, go to: http://www.torontosun.com/2014/08/15/ciscos-ontario-job-commitment-firm-despite-layoffs-duguid
No comments:
Post a Comment