§ Mr. TrimbleTo ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many jobs have been(a) lost and (b) created in the manufacturing sector in Northern Ireland during the last five years. [159744]
§ Mr. PearsonOver the last five years, to 5 March 2004, there were 19,058 redundancies in the manufacturing sector in Northern Ireland confirmed to the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment.
261WInformation on the number of jobs created is not available. However, figures from the Northern Ireland Quarterly Employment Survey (QES) can be used to estimate the net change in employee jobs during the last five years. Latest figures from the QES show that in September 2003 there were 91,830 employee jobs in manufacturing. This represents a decrease of 16,010(-14.8 per cent.) from the September 1998 figure of 107,840. Over the same five year period there has been a net increase of 51,790 (8.4 per cent.) in the total number of employee jobs in Northern Ireland, which at September 2003 was estimated to be 667,050, the highest September employee jobs figure on record.