A GREENOCK company has taken on nine new members of staff - six of them unemployed young people.

The new starts at Stepper Technology are all employed as manufacturing technicians and will be involved in recycling parts from scrap machines bought from Western Digital's flooded factory in Thailand.

Thomas Smith, managing director, said: "We have taken them on for a minimum of a year. If we can make more of it we will try to keep some, if not all of them on." Stepper is the only firm in Europe that refurbishes photolithography equipment which is crucial to companies such as American-based Western Digital that make hard drives.

Earlier this year, Stepper secured orders from Western Digital worth �1.5 million to refurbish machinery to replace equipment that was damaged during floods last year. Staff have spent the past four months completing and installing the machines.

Now the company has bought 30 scrap machines to recycle parts that will be used to refurbish more photolithography equipment that will be used all around the world. Stepper has rented another factory from McGill's, owners of all the factory units at Larkfield Industrial Estate, to build new work areas to accommodate the workload.

Stepper has also just recently secured an order from Ireland to refurbish yet another machine over the next six weeks.