FG Wilson is looking to cut as many as seven hundred and sixty jobs in Northern Ireland, deeply impacting the struggling local economy.

Caterpillar, the owner of FG Wilson, has said that job cuts will be made across all four locations in Northern Ireland. FG Wilson is one Northern Ireland's largest manufacturers and it employs 3,000 people. The company had announced 160 job cuts in July and there are fears that it is likely to announce hundreds more till 2014.

FG Wilson also warned that it would announce more redundancies as the management has decided to move some the production of small diesel generators to China. It is believed that job cuts will impact Larne, Co. Antrim deeply but it will also have an impact in three other sites in the greater Belfast area within this year.

The company has said that it is aiming to make its production more efficient and is moving Production of 70% of small generator sets to China by early 2014, indicating a major job cut in the region. Northern Ireland's unemployment rate of 8.2% is the highest of any region in the UK and the large number of people that will be laid off from the company will add pressure on the local economy.

"We understand these decisions will be difficult for the lives of many of our workers and their families, and we genuinely regret that. We are striving to reduce some of the impact by offering an enhanced VR package. We'll also help redeploy displaced workers by providing training on new skill sets, partnering with potential Northern Ireland employers to host job fairs and hiring a placement service," said Robert Kennedy, the company's Northern Ireland operations director.