Major increase in job-hunters as 500 jobs lost last year

Employment agency FÁS has seen a major increase in the number of job-hunters as the latest figures released show that more than 500 people in Offaly were made redundant last year, an increase of 62% on 2007. Employment Services Manager of FÁS in Tullamore Christy Todd said yesterday (Thursday): 'There is a major increase in people looking for jobs and training and unfortunately there aren"t jobs available for them out there.' He said the job losses in Offaly, along with the other Midland counties, have been right across the board, affecting men and women of all levels and qualifications. FÁS is running extra training courses, short-term courses as well as organising free night-classes for people signing on the live register which are run in FÁS Athlone. 'Now is the tough time, a lot of the jobs finishing seemed to coincide with the Christmas break,' added Mr Todd but said that perhaps this was the peak. Mr Todd spoke to the Offaly Independent after the latest figures from the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment showed that a total of 543 people in Offaly were made redundant last year compared to 335 people during 2007. Offaly"s constituency partner Laois suffered 557 job losses in 2008, which was a shocking increase of 172%, one of the highest in the country. And 785 people lost their job in Westmeath during the year, an increase of 74%. The average county increase in redundancies was 60%. ISME, the Irish Small and Medium Enterprises Association, said that the country was in a crisis and that there was worse to come in early 2009. ISME warned that unless the cost of maintaining staff was addressed, the labour market will collapse. 'January will be the worst month on record for announced job losses. This is primarily due to the fact that many businesses are reviewing their options after the Christmas period. The Government needs to address in particular, the cost of labour, which is still well in excess of many of our competitors,' said Mark Fielding, ISME Chief Executive. The Small Firms Association is also predicting worse news on the jobs front and are warning that the continuing cost of doing business in Ireland for small enterprises will have further dire consequences for the employment prospects of Irish workers.