Tayto Northern Ireland, the well-known crispmaker in the North, may be about to lay off 80 workers, unions have warned. A further 80 jobs are meanwhile under threat at the Belfast IT division of markets company, Euronext, which plans to move some operations to Portugal.

Tayto Northern Ireland, based in Tandragee, Co Armagh is due to celebrate its 60th anniversary this year.

Unite officer Sean McKeever said up to 80 jobs may be axed at the Tandragee plant over the coming months and the union intends to ballot its members for strike action at the factory. Mr McKeever said workers had the factory had sustained “a series of blows” of late.

The crisp company, which is not related to Tayto in the Republic, is part of the Manderley Food Group, which is privately owned by the Hutchinson family.

Separately, Euronext, the pan-European financing centre and a high profile investor in Northern Ireland, has confirmed plans to close its Belfast IT division with the potential loss of 80 jobs.

Euronext

Euronext, which operates regulated markets in Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Portugal and the UK, had previously been the technology division of the New York Stock Exchange before it was sold to Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) for $11 billion (€9.7bn) in 2013.

NYSE first came to Northern Ireland in 2009 and the decision by Euronext to relocate jobs to its Portugal operations will be seen as a major blow for the North.

In a statement the company said: “IT is a core component of Euronext’s value proposition that enables us to run our markets and be the leading pan-European market operator.

“We want to get closer to our core markets where we are the leading market infrastructure. As a result we have decided to relocate IT operations from Belfast and rationalise our operating model.”