Redundancies rise 6,350 in July

Some 6,350 people were made redundant last month, an increase of nearly 65 per cent on July 2008.

Figures, published today by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, showed more than 200 people lost their jobs each day during the month.

However, the percentage monthly rise has moderated when compared with increases of more than 200 per cent recorded in the early part of the year.

There were 49,009 redundancies notified to Department under the statutory redundancy scheme in the first seven months of the year, a 142 per cent increase on the 20,225 recorded for same period in 2008.

Several high-profile companies announced redundancies during the month, including Intel, Element Six and Thomas Cook.

A breakdown of the figures showed that the worst hit sectors of the economy were services, building and civil engineering and manufacturing.

The Other Services sector accounted for 2,281 job losses in July, and 16,908 since the beginning of the year.

There were 1,726 lay offs in the building and civil engineering sector, bringing the total for the year to date to 12,562.

The next worst-hit sector was Other Manufacturing which recorded 1,011 jobs losses, or 9,296 in the year to date.

The figures showed men accounted for twice the number of redundancies at 4,250 than woman at 2,100.

Responding to what it said were "dismal" figures, ISME called for the creation of a National Employment Task Force to stop the "haemorrhaging" of jobs.

“The latest figures confirm our worst fears on job losses which will take more than a generation to reverse," ISME chief executive Mark Fielding said.

"The severity of the problem merits a serious response from a Government 'en vacances', and it is absolutely essential that they take immediate steps to both save and create jobs, unfortunately, as the Government holidays, the dole queues lengthen,” Mr Fielding said.

ISME is seeking a task force made up of the Government, industry leaders including SME representatives, the heads of State agencies, employee representatives and the Opposition, with the task force mandated to report within weeks and recommendations fast-tracked for implementation.

The Small Firms’ Association (SFA) said the Government needed to take decisive action in stemming the fall-off in employment and “stop peddling about with restrictive pilot schemes”.

SFA director Patricia Callan said: “It is vitally important that we don't allow a whole new generation to be lost to long-term unemployment; instead we should allow them to maintain their skill base and add to the competitiveness of smaller enterprises by matching the two on mainstream work placement programmes".