The Small firms Association, in its Autumn Statement on Jobs, has said that redundancies are undermining positive job creation.
Pat Delanaey, the association's director, said the level of redundancies in Ireland continues to undermine reports of positive job creation prospects.
He said that 465 people a week have lost their jobs since the beginning of this year. This continues a trend that started in January 2002 and since then there have been 71,198 redundancies recorded in the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment.
The total will increase by 23,000 jobs in 2004 and this will greatly undermine the positive effect of new job creation, which the SFA expects to be in the order of 36,000.
Delaney said: "This would be a very unwelcome outcome and underpins the need for deeper and faster pay moderation, particularly among manufacturing companies. Average pay in Ireland is now 132% of the EU average and pay rises averaging 5% in the past year were twice those of our competitors."
He said the manufacturing sector has been hardest hit, with 6,303 jobs and 35% of all jobs lost to date this year. The cumulative losses in this sector now stand at over 30,000 since 2002.
