SFA: Rising costs putting manufacturing jobs at risk
The Small Firms Association has warned that increasing costs are undermining Irish economic competitiveness and putting jobs at risk.
The association said the level of recorded redundancies in 2004 showed that exposed sectors of the economy were coming under severe competitive pressures due to higher electricity and gas costs, as well as waste, water and environmental charges.
The SFA said that, while the 23,372 redundancies reported to the Government last year was 16% lower than the figure for the previous year, it masked a major decline in the manufacturing sector, which shed more than 8,000 jobs.
Association president Pat Delaney said: "We are creating jobs. We have very strong economic growth. We have a very tight labour market. But at the same time, there seems little point in creating jobs at one end of the economy when we're shedding very important jobs at the other."
