Who's hiring?

The Ministry of Defence has secured a contract with Airtanker to produce a fleet of refuelling planes which will create 600 jobs and safeguard 3,000.

About 200 new jobs could be created at airline seat producer Thompson Solutions in Kilkeel, County Down because of a contract with US airline Delta.

Irish enterprise minister Micheál Martin has announced 170 new jobs at US biotechnology company Genzyme and a further 100 jobs at Microchem Labs in Co Waterford.

Dumper truck maker Neuson is creating more than 50 new jobs with an expansion in Rhymney, Wales after a £6.4m investment from the Welsh Assembly.



Who's firing?

Motorola announced 2,600 more redundancies, bringing total job losses to over 10,000 in the last year. The cuts are part of a plan to save $400m.

Swiss bank UBS is axing 500 jobs — about 3% of its worldwide investment banking workforce — after the lender wrote down an additional $19bn in assets.

Royal Bank of Scotland is cutting about 200 jobs in its corporate banking business after deals dried up because of the credit crunch.

Belgian brewery InBev plans to shed 168 staff at its brewery at Samlesbury near Preston, UK.

Computer giant Dell is closing its desktop making facility in Austin, Texas and will lay off at leaset 8.800 employees worldwide.