Weekly job losses at 490 as redundancies soar by 28%

ALMOST 500 jobs were lost on average every week during 2002 while redundancies were up 28% on the year before, the latest figures show.

Annual statistics released by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment show 23,574 workers were made redundant this year an average of 490 lost jobs every week.

Dublin fared worst accounting for over 51% of the losses with Cork and the Mid-West suffering losses of more than 2,500 jobs each.

In a statement issued yesterday, Small Firms Association (SFA) director Pat Delaney said a continued erosion of Ireland's cost competitiveness would lead to further unemployment.

"We expect to see further erosion of jobs in 2003 as investment and business confidence continues to weaken," he said.

"The outlook for job creation is particularly poor, with the ability of small companies to create jobs at an eight-year low.

"If there is significant exchange rate volatility which sees the euro strengthen against sterling and the US dollar, the impact on exports will be pronounced."

He said many small companies have had to engage in drastic cost-cutting measures in an effort to survive the economic downturn.

Spiralling labour, insurance and energy costs have also played their part in putting increased pressure on business survival. Mr Delaney said: "Ireland must export 84% of everything we produce and trade 156% of GNP. Any external shock will have a sudden and severe impact in 2003."

Hardest hit this year was the manufacturing sector, accounting for 9,981 lost jobs or 42% of all jobs lost this year. Of this, the metal manufacturing and engineering sector suffered the greatest losses 6,698 jobs.

Other sector were also hit hard. Some 3,283 jobs were lost in banking, finance and insurance, there were 2,960 losses in the distributive trades and 2,515 transport and communications workers lost their jobs.

Mr Delaney said: "What is of particular concern about the high levels of redundancies is that our ability to create jobs to compensate for these losses has been severely damaged by losses to competitiveness in recent years."

He said job creation prospects were at an eight-year low. The overall demand for employees and the number of hours worked is expected to decline in 2003 as long as current economic conditions prevail.

Mr Delaney said: "With the increased number of redundancies and the lack of jobs being created to replace them, it is no surprise the unemployment rate has been increasing. If it were not for the 14,000 jobs created in the public sector in the first nine months of 2002, the unemployment picture would be much bleaker."