REDUNDANCIES SURGED to their highest ever monthly level in March, as 7,802 workers became eligible for the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment’s redundancy scheme.
The rate of redundancies last month was a dramatic 238 per cent higher than in March 2008, while on a cumulative basis the rate of redundancies in the first three months of 2009 is up 163 per cent on the same period last year.
There has been a total of 20,798 redundancies so far this year, compared with a total of 7,913 for the first three months of 2008. The services sector as been the hardest hit, with some 8,441 redundancies in the transport, communications, financial services and other service sectors of the economy.
Ulster Bank economist Lynsey Clemenger said yesterday that the number of job losses in the services sector would accelerate in the coming months, as sectors such as retail suffer the impact of reluctance among Irish consumers to spend money in the current economic climate.
There have been some 6,043 redundancies from the construction sector so far this year, while the tide of job losses from manufacturing also continues unabated, with 4,580 redundancies in the metal manufacturing, engineering and other manufacturing sectors.
The data on redundancies was published by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment on the same day that the Central Statistics Office said that a further 20,000 people have now joined the seasonally adjusted Live Register of unemployment benefits.
To be eligible for the statutory redundancy scheme, employees must have at least two years’ service with their employer.
Bloxham economist Alan McQuaid said yesterday that the state of the labour market was likely to get a lot worse before it gets better.
