Catholics in the North are now getting a fairer share of jobs, according to a new report published today.
During the 1990s the proportion of Catholics in the monitored workforce - all public sector concerns and private firms with 26 or more employees - increased by 4.7 per cent to 39.6 per cent, according to data compiled by the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency.
The change was most marked in the private sector where Catholic representation increased by 5.3 per cent between 1990 and 1999, whereas in the public sector their share rose by 3 per cent.
However Catholics are still more likely than Protestants to be unemployed although the gap has been narrowing significantly over the past 20 years.
In 1981 25.5 per cent of Catholics and 11.4 per cent of Protestants were unemployed - a difference of 14.1 per cent.
By 1999 the difference had dropped to just 3.8 per cent, with Catholic unemployment standing at 8.8 per cent and Protestant at 5.0 per cent.
Between the start of the 1970s and the end of the 1990s the number of Catholics in the "economically active population" increased from 31.2 per cent to 42.4 per cent.
The figures were contained in a new Source Book detailing labour force characteristics in the Protestant and Catholic communities, produced by the Statistics and Research Agency.
It said there was little difference in the highest level of qualification obtained by the economically active within each community throughout the 1990s.
PA