Other attractions include employee loyalty and work ethic, few cultural and language barriers, access to the European market and, last but not least, big grants from the government. Most of the incentive will be provided in employee training. That's 10 percent to 15 percent below pay levels across the North Channel in Glasgow, Scotland, where TeleTech also runs a center, company officials said, but above local rates. Competition for workers in Northern Ireland, however, appears to be pushing wages up. The company has had trouble lately holding on to engineers with five or six years of experience, he said.
Companies face other challenges, as well.
Avalanche chief executive Fred Crowe said his biggest challenge so far is finding the right office space. Belfast property owners are accustomed to leases of up to 20 years, which is a very inflexible arrangement for a quickly growing company, he said. For now, Avalanche's 30 Belfast employees are packed into a small office building in the harbor district on the outskirts of town. Belfast's shipyards once were the world's finest, producing mammoth vessels such as the Titanic, but they've deteriorated and now are being redeveloped into business parks. Kristy Schloss, president of Schloss Engineered Equipment, said communications with her joint-venture partner, FM Environmental, based in the southern city of Newry, has been the biggest challenge.