Layoffs climb above 6,500 for October

THERE WERE 6,561 redundancies in October, according to figures released yesterday by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment.

The services sector took the brunt of the job losses, with a total of 3,356 redundancies in transport, communications, financial and other services during the month.

There were 1,601 manufacturing redundancies and 1,083 redundancies from the building and civil engineering sector.

So far in 2009 there has been 67,207 job losses under the department’s redundancy scheme, up 110 per cent on the same number recorded in the first 10 months of last year.

The number of redundancies had stabilised in recent months, but increased again last month. The number recorded for October is the highest since June.

Meanwhile, Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan told the Dáil yesterday that there had been no increase in the number of jobseeker’s benefit claimants on the Live Register during the month of October.

The Live Register data is due to be published by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) today.

Responding to the redundancy data, Patricia Callan, the director of the Small Firms Association, said the Live Register was giving the Government a “false sense of security” on jobs.

“The Government is taking heart from the flattening of the Live Register index in recent months, yet the redundancy figures clearly demonstrate that the jobs crisis is very real and is spiralling out of control,” Ms Callan said.

The Live Register has stabilised because of a “veritable brain drain” through emigration and because employees who were moved to shorter working weeks this time last year, entitling them to benefits, have now been made unemployed, she said.