Live Register Not Reflective of Job Losses in September

6 Oct 2006

While the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed (INOU) welcomes the reductions in the Live Register (LR) in September published today, it is concerned at the very high level of job losses announced in September. The LR will not reflect announced job losses in the same month – they will work their way into the figures in the months to come, when the job losses actually occur. Also, actual redundancies for the nine months to September (17,340) are just ahead of last year’s high level. Nearly a third of these losses were in the manufacturing sector.

On this basis, 2006 will turn out to be the fifth year in a row with redundancies above 23,000 or over 450 jobs lost every week. This is a much higher plane of job losses than the years before 2002.

The INOU tracks redundancies around the country through an outreach project. This shows that around 1,700 job losses have been announced in 12 company closures and downsizing around the country in the month of September. This is the highest monthly total observed by the INOU since the project began in late 2003. The greater majority of these jobs are in manufacturing, both traditional and modern. 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.
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 has called for taskforces to be set up where large-scale job losses occur, or at the very least to ascertain if they have been successful in the past. 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 cannot start quickly enough.