§ Mr. Mallonasked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will give for each of the last six years the 68W number of redundancies notified to the Department of Economic Development, the total number of jobs involved and the number of company closures by district council area in Northern Ireland.
§ Mr. Viggers[pursuant to his reply, 21 November 1986; c. 386]: The numbers of redundancies notified to the Department of Economic Development, and previously the Department of Manpower Services, in each of the last six years are as follows:
Number of Notifications Number of Redundancies Notified 1980 N/A 44,999 1981 430 23,614 1982 311 18,365 1983 185 9,254 1984 120 6,161 1985 100 5,568 Redundancies are notified to the Department in advance and may not all eventually occur.
Comprehensive information on company closures and associated employment loss is not available as there is no general requirement for businesses to notify the Department of closures.
The following table shows the closures of which the Department has details and relates mainly to closures of larger employers:
Number of closures Jobs lost at closure 1980 76 5,824 1981 74 5,234 1982 74 4,952 1983 27 1,785 1984 27 1,429 1985 13 548 A breakdown of these by district council area could be made available only at disproportionate cost.