asked the Minister for Labour the levels of employment at January each year for the past five years in the printing industry; the level of job losses for each year of the same period; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
Written Answers. - Printing Industry.
593.
The information requested by the Deputy is not readily available and efforts by my Department to procure information from other sources relating specifically to the printing industry have not been successful. However, according to the quarterly inquiry into industrial employment conducted by the Central Statistics Office the number employed in the printing and packaging industry over the last five years at December were: 1980, 11,500; 1981, 11,300; 1982, 10,300; 1983, 9,600; 1984 (June), 9,400 (provisional).
Information on the level of job losses in the industry is not available in my Department. Redundancy statistics which relate to the printing industry are included under a broad category of papermaking, printing etc. The level of redundancies notified under the redundancy payments scheme in this category over the period 1980 to 1984 were: 1980, 619; 1981, 940; 1982, 1,018; 1983, 933; 1984, 731. These figures do not include categories of employees who do not come within the scope of the Redundancy Payments Acts (e.g. employees with less than two years eligible service with an employer; employees who are under 16 years of age or who have reached the qualifying age for old age pension; employees who worked less than 20 hours per week).