Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 17 Oct 2002

Vol. 555 No. 4

Written Answers. - Redundancy Levels.

Richard Bruton

Question:

54 Mr. R. Bruton asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the level of notified redundancies in each month for 2000, 2001 and 2002; the date on which these figures are published each month; and the website on which they are posted. [18700/02]

Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment (Ms Harney)

The redundancies notified to my Department for each month of 2000, 2001 and 2002 to end September were as follows:

	2000	2001	2002
January	1,723	1,424	1,928
February	1,199	1,052	2,097
March	1,438	1,494	1,638
April	1,068	1,791	2,592
May	944	1,628	3,318
June	920	1,628	2,230
July	1,171	2,000	2,355
August	757	1,506	1,522
September	925	1,498	1,561
October	938	1,740
November	1,341	2,638
December	892	1,429
Total	13,316	19,828	19,241(to-date)

Note: It is important to recognise the limitations of the figures quoted of notified redundancies. They relate to proposed redundancies not to actual redundancies. Redundancies notified during a month may relate to cases which on examination by the Department are found not to be qualified redundancies. The notifications may not include redundancies arising from lay-off and short-time working and redundancies which are in dispute between employer and employee and which require to be resolved by reference to the Employment Appeals Tribunal. They do not include the following categories of employees – employees with less than two years eligible service with an employer, employees who are under 16 years of age or employees who have reached the qualifying age for old age pension.

These monthly figures are normally published on the third or fourth working day of the subsequent month. The figures are made widely available to the media, the social partners, researchers and the Central Statistics Office who publish them in their Statistical Bulletin and post them on their website. Their website address is http://www.cso.ie. Their telephone number is [phone] – contact Labour Market Section or Information Section.