ABOUT 700 staff at Ericsson in Coventry have been left stunned by the Swedish telecommunications giant’s plans to pull out of the city.
They had only relocated to the Ansty Park base in July, a move which was supposed to be the trigger to attract 5,000 more new highly-skilled jobs to the former airfield site near Walsgrave.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown visited the site in February and spoke of its national importance in developing advanced manufacturing to drive the UK’s future economy once the upturn comes.
But it has just become a victim of the recession.
Ericsson announced yesterday it intends to withdraw its UK-based research and development and global service delivery activities abroad from Coventry, as part of on-going £1 billion cost-cutting proposals.
Sean Leahy, Ericsson’s staff representative from trade union Unite, told the Telegraph: “The employees here are shocked and stunned.
“We only moved to here in July and we saw that as a positive development and a sign there was confidence in conducting research and development in the UK.
“Nobody had any inkling at Ansty Park that the whole site could close.”
Staff had relocated this summer from Allard Way, where Ericsson took over from Marconi in January 2006.
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