INVESTMENT in manufacturing is set to create 100 new positions in Northern Ireland, according to a leading engineering firm.
Caterpillar Northern Ireland operations director Robert Kennedy was speaking during a recent visit to the company’s Larne plant by Employment and Learning Minister Stephen Farry.
The minister was there to see how his department’s investment of £220,000 through its Assured Skills Programme was helping deliver potential job creation in Caterpillar’s new material handler operation.
Mr Kennedy said: “We are very pleased to have the support of the Department for Employment and Learning to make this investment in skills. The development of our workforce is essential to help enable new work from within the Caterpillar Group to come to Northern Ireland, providing an important addition to our existing operations.
“When fully established, approximately 100 positions will be required to run the material handler operation.” In October 2013 Caterpillar invested more than £7m in the major manufacturing project in Northern Ireland to be able to assemble Cat wheeled material handlers.
Training for this new workforce is being delivered by Northern Regional College (NRC) and Belfast Metropolitan College (Belfast Met) at two of Caterpillar’s Northern Ireland plants, with NRC providing training at Monkstown and Belfast Met delivering training at Larne.
Speaking during the visit, minister Farry said: “It is encouraging to see the development of this new project in Caterpillar and to see how the company is moving into a new field with the manufacture of material handlers.
“This diversification into a new area of business will help secure current jobs with Caterpillar in years to come and widens their portfolio of products.
“It is pleasing to see the investment by my department delivering skills training to employees, while demonstrating successful collaboration between the department’s Assured Skills Branch, further education colleges and Caterpillar.
“To date, there have been 12 companies supported through the Assured Skills programme and when all 3,068 jobs are created, this will benefit the local economy by £86m each year.