Redundancy figures rise again in June

THE NUMBER of redundancies rose again in June after falling back slightly the previous month. According to official figures supplied by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Innovation, the number of people losing their jobs rose to 5,339 in June from 5,026 in May. This brings to 33,876 the total number of redundancies recorded this year to date.

The figure is 20 per cent below the number of jobs lost in the first half of last year, a gap that has been widening as the year progresses.

A breakdown shows that 2,243 redundancies were recorded in the services sector, 1,250 were in manufacturing, excluding metal manufacturing and engineering, while job losses in the building and civil engineering industry accounted for 974 redundancies.

The data, released by the department on a monthly basis, refer to actual redundancies recorded by the department under the redundancy scheme. The Small Firms Association said the figures were “disappointing but not surprising”. Director Avine McNally, said the loss of manufacturing jobs was particularly concerning.

“The manufacturing sector shows a loss of 1,935 jobs and given the global pressures and costs associated with doing business in Ireland this sector maintains a worrying downward trend.”

The number of firms going out of business rose 27 per cent in the first half of 2010, compared to the same period last year according to data from InsolvencyJournal.ie, the website run by accountancy firm Kavanagh Fennell.

A total of 792 companies went out of business between January and June, compared to 622 in the same period of 2009. In contrast, 773 failures were recorded for the whole of 2008. The data showed that construction, hospitality, retail and services sectors accounted for most closures, with most based in the Dublin area.