Redundancy notifications fell markedly again last month but the pace of the annual drop has eased.

Figures released by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment yesterday showed that just shy of 2,000 redundancies were notified last month.

This represented a drop of 15.5 per cent on October 2003, when 2,361 notifications were made.

The fall offers further evidence of a strengthening jobs market.Redundancies have now been slowing on an annual basis since June, although the decline lost some momentum in October.

September's total of 1,736 notifications was 32.3 per cent lower than the total recorded in September 2003.

The August tally was 25.6 per cent lower than in the same month a year earlier.

October's result came as little comfort to the Small Firms Association (SFA), which yesterday said the "continuing erosion of manufacturing jobs" in the economy was a major source of concern.

Figures spanning the January to October period show that more than a third of the 20,127 redundancy notifications made in the year to date came from manufacturing companies. Manufacturers made almost half of October's notifications.

SFA director Mr Pat Delaney said the latest figures offer "proof positive" that manufacturing companies are cutting costs as they try to win back lost competitiveness.

"Ireland's deteriorating cost competitiveness already undermined the ability of many companies to compete in international markets," Mr Delaney said.

After manufacturing, distributive trades were hit worst by redundancies last month.

The sector notified 305 job losses.