GROWING casualisation of employment in RTE has pushed the number of people on temporary contracts from 4.6 per cent of the total workforce in 1988 to over 16.7 per cent last year.
The overall number of employees fell in the six year period up to 1994 from 2,146 to 1,973. But in 1988 only 99 people employed were on such contracts while last year 330 were in temporary employment.
The director of the Faculty of Applied Arts at the Dublin Institute of Technology, Dr Ellen Hazelkorn, writing in the Irish Communications Review, says that, while permanent and pensionable jobs have been lost, RTE has, to some degree, been replacing them with contract staff.
While all areas of the organisation have lost permanent jobs, those most affected have been the technical areas, which have felt the full force of new technology.
Dr Hazelkorn's figures show a massive increase in the number of people employed on temporary contracts in non technological areas.
News, for instance, employed 142 people last year, compared to 137 in 1988. However, the number employed on various types of temporary contracts has risen from three to 40. That represents a rise from 2.2 per cent to 28.2 per cent.
Women still only account for 31.8 per cent of personnel, but because of growing casualisation in areas where their numbers are greatest they account for 60 per cent of part time workers.