The Small Firms Association has described the outlook for employment for this year and 2004 as 'dire'.
In a mid-year statement on jobs, SFA director Pat Delaney says one job every 20 minutes has been lost since January 2002, with 42% of the lost jobs coming in the manufacturing sector.
He blames spiralling labour, insurance and energy costs, and adds that our ability to create new jobs to compensate for these losses has been damaged by losses to competitiveness.
