By Leeza Clark

Dunfermline was dealt another jobs blow at the weekend when electronics firm Simclar announced it was axing 70 posts.

The news that the Pitreavie-based firm was making around a sixth of its 400-strong Dunfermline workforce redundant comes not long after the announcement of the impending closure of the Lexmark factory in Rosyth later this year, with the loss of 700 jobs.

Simclar managing director and founder Sam Russell was one local business man who took part in a summit with Scottish Secretary Alistair Darling only days after the Rosyth plant’s shock announcement.

Once again it appears Scotland, and the Fife workforce in particular, has lost out to other countries where manufacturing costs are lower.

Founded in the garage of his Dunfermline home 30 years ago by Mr Russell, Simclar has grown over the decades and now employs 1200 in Fife and Ayrshire and 2200 around the world in bases in America, Mexico and China.

Its 16 plants work on a wide range of products for international electronics-related firms in varying sectors such as defence and biotechnology.

However the firm, which makes electronic chipboards, sheet metal and cable, said it had come under increasing pressure from customers to move its production to low cost economies overseas.

A spokesman for the Simclar Group, Scotland’s largest family-owned manufacturing concern, said the redundancies at its Dunfermline base were “regrettable” and came as a direct result of having to compete in a global marketplace where manufacturing costs did not operate on a level playing field.

“The company is Scottish headquartered and proud of it. We intend to remain so,” he added.

“Nevertheless the redundancies, which we have had no option but to make, underline once again just how difficult it is to compete when customers are telling us that they want the best possible deal even when that means that their products are manufactured in countries and territories with significantly smaller cost bases than we experience here in Scotland and the UK.”

Little comfort to the axed workers, but the spokesman added that the company was currently involved in a successful diversification strategy and expected global sales this year to top $400 million.

Newly elected MP Willie Rennie said, “This is terrible news for each one of the employees at Simclar. I will be doing all I can to help them find new jobs.

“This, like Lexmark, is the result of a flawed economic strategy based on competing with wages rather than knowledge, skills, science and research and development,” he added.

“The Scottish Executive, thankfully, are on the right track now and we must advance that strategy as much as possible.”

Local MSP Scott Barrie said the news was “deeply disappointing.”

“It shows how competitive the international micro electronics industry is,” he said.

The Labour MSP added that he would now be looking at what assistance he could give to those made redundant.

He would be talking to Scottish Enterprise Fife today about help available to those out of a job and would be seeking an early meeting with Mr Russell, who, it is believed, is currently in the United States.