Despite the improvement in the Irish economy last year, textiles and engineering continue to come under pressure from competing countries. The electronics and IT sector recovered, but the pharmaceutical industry showed some large-scale losses.
The number of redundancies was down in 2004 by 15.6% while the level of redundancy payments, paid out to departing employees, largely remained unchanged.
Despite the improvement in the Irish economy last year, textiles and engineering continue to come under pressure from competing countries. The electronics and IT sector recovered, but the pharmaceutical industry showed some large-scale losses.
The redundancy agreements are part of an annual survey of settlements by Industrial Relations News (IRN).
In mid-2004 the social partners concluded an agreement under Sustaining Progress, the current three year national agreement, which resulted in an increase in the statutory ceiling on weekly earnings. The increase, from EUR 507.90 to EUR 600 per week, which took effect on January 1, 2005, brings the ceiling to barely above average earnings in manufacturing and is below average earnings in the services and distribution sectors.
In the textile sector, which saw at least six major closures, including two of the largest industries in Co. Donegal (Fruit of the Loom and Unifi) and the last shoe manufacturer in Ireland (Dubarry). Redundancy settlement terms in the sector tended to be a little higher than in recent years, averaging between four to five weeks pay for each year of service, inclusive of the minimum statutory entitlement, which is two weeks pay for each year of service.
Metals and engineering also saw significant employment losses, particularly in the automotive parts sector, which is losing out to competition from Eastern Europe in particular. Pharmaceuticals and healthcare, traditionally the provider of job security in the private sector, experienced job losses notable companies like Allergan, Sola ADC and Schering Plough.
Electronics showed fewer job losses than in recent years. Traditionally it is a strongly pro-cyclical industry, so this was not surprising, given the recovery in growth rates.
Financial services had some major rationalisations, but this has to be seen in the context of 17,000 extra jobs created in financial services during 2004.
Despite some major job losses in the pharmaceutical sector, it still had some of the highest severance packages, with seven weeks pay for each year of service (inclusive of statutory entitlement) at Schwarz Pharma and Allergan, and six weeks pay plus statutory at Schering Plough.
Many of the redundancies in the food and distribution sectors were small-scale, while settlements tended to be relatively high, around the four to six weeks figure, inclusive of statutory.
In engineering, most settlements were around five to six weeks inclusive of statutory, but at least half of them were closure situations, rather than voluntary programmes - an indication of difficult times in the sector.
In services, the financial firms led the way on severance terms, with a capped package of eight weeks pay, inclusive of statutory, agreed at Ulster Bank/First Active.
This information is made available through the European Industrial Relations Observatory (EIRO), as a service to users of the EIROnline database. EIRO is a project of the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions. However, this information has been neither edited nor approved by the Foundation, which means that it is not responsible for its content and accuracy. This is the responsibility of the EIRO national centre that originated/provided the information. For details see the "About this record" information in this record.
Eurofound priporoča, da to publikacijo navedete na naslednji način.
Eurofound (2005), Redundancy terms stable as job losses decline, article.
