Major Loss of Manufacturing Jobs in September

28 Sep 2006

The Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed (INOU) is extremely concerned at the very high level of job losses announced in September to date. The INOU tracks redundancies around the country through an outreach project. This shows that 1,375 job losses have taken place in 10 company closures and downsizing around the country in the last four weeks alone.

The vast majority of these jobs are in manufacturing, both traditional and modern.

The current crop of job losses is taking place in Munster, Carlow and the North-East, with particular heavy losses in Cork city and county. These will have devastating impacts on the local communities, with little prospect of replacement jobs in the short term. The major factor stated for the redundancies is the rising costs of wages, energy and other running costs. Several of the companies affected plan to re-locate their operations to lower-cost economies in Eastern Europe and elsewhere. Banta Corporation, which produces hard disc drives and prints I.T. manuals, is moving to a new facility in the Czech Republic.

The INOU has continually warned about job losses in traditional manufacturing industries, especially in rural areas. However, modern manufacturing in I.T. and healthcare is increasingly being affected. “The Government must wake up to the haemorrhaging taking place in the manufacturing sector”, said Mr. Eric Conroy, General Secretary. “If we continue along this path of constant job losses, there could be little or no production of goods taking place in this country. Is that the sign of a successful and sustainable economy?, he added.

The INOU is pleased that an initiative will be undertaken to address the challenges to the manufacturing sector in the new social partnership agreement, Towards 2016. Based on the record in September, this work needs to start immediately.