14,600 industrial job losses during year
The cull of jobs has resulted in the remaining 241,500 industrial workers employed in the state to increase their workload to over 40 hours a week.
Average industrial earnings are up 5.7% this year but workers are putting in more hours as there are fewer people employed in Irish industry almost 30,000 industrial jobs have been lost in the last two years.
The unemployment rate stands at 5.2% with 98,900 unemployed. This takes close to €800 million a year in wages out of the economy which in turn impacts negatively on consumer spending and is hitting retailers this Christmas.
The loss of 14,600 jobs so far this year takes €7.8m a week in wages out of the economy a massive €408m in a full year.
Two separate sets of statistics issued yesterday by the Central Statistics Office show that the 241,500 remaining in employment at the end of September in all industries saw their earnings increase by 5.7% in the year to the end of September.
However, in the three months to September, earnings actually fell by 0.2%, while hourly earnings fell by 0.7%.
Average earnings per week in June hit €538.24, up from €508.35 in September 2002 and greater than the average weekly take of €537.19 in September of this year. Industrial hourly earnings rose by 4.0% while average hours worked increased 1.8% over the year to date.
Average weekly earnings of all employees rose by 5.7% in the year to September 2003, with the same rate of increase for industrial and for clerical and managerial employees.
Men continue to earn far more that women but women work shorter hours. By September, the average working week for a man was 41.5 hours to earn an average of €596.62 while the average woman earned €391.59 for a 36.7 hour week.
The number of people engaged in industrial employment was 241,500 in September, a decrease of 14,600 from the 256,100 employed a year earlier.
The electrical equipment manufacturing sector took the biggest hit with a decrease of 4,800 jobs.
The numbers at work include part time workers, workers on sick leave and the owners of businesses and family members not paid a definite wage or salary.
Men working in the "electricity, gas, steam and hot water supply" sector have the highest average industrial weekly earnings of €1,109.91, working an average of 45.3 hours a week.
Commenting on the results IBEC said the job losses reflect the progressive loss of competitiveness against Ireland's main trading partners over the past three years and an inability to raise prices on weak international markets.
IBEC senior economist, Aebhric McGibney said: "Unit labour costs in Ireland against the main industrialised economies have risen by 15% since 2000 and factory gate prices for exported goods have fallen by roughly the same amount over the period.
"This has led to a squeeze on margins, which has to be met by greater productivity and/or lower wage growth.
"The rate of growth of industrial earnings fell sharply in the third quarter of 2003, almost halving from 7.6% in Q2 2003 to 4% in Q3 2003. Nonetheless, wage growth remains above that of many of our competitors and almost twice the rate of inflation."
