The number of Catholics in the Northern Ireland workplace is steadily rising, according to a report published today.
The 14th annual Fair Employment Monitoring Report revealed the proportion of Catholics in employment grew by 0.8 per cent between 2002 and 2003.
Chief commissioner Ms Joan Harbison said the returns showed the gap was continuing to close between Catholics and Protestants in employment.
"When monitoring began there was still a substantial under-representation of Catholics compared to their proportion among the economically active," she said. Back in 1990, the Catholic share of the workforce stood at just 34.9 per cent.
The monitored workforce, which now includes part-time workers, 58.3 per cent Protestant and 41.7 per cent Catholic.
The figures released today were based on an analysis of monitoring returns relating to 486,420 employees sent to the Equality Commission by 3,828 private companies and 136 public bodies.
The report revealed that Catholics were no longer under-represented in the public sector but there are still a lower proportion in security occupations and district councils.
In security related occupations, where there was a decline of more than 500 full-time posts, the numbers of Protestants fell by 4.4 per cent while Catholics rose by 11.6 per cent.
This reflected the 50:50 recruitment policy designed to increase the proportion of Catholics in the PSNI.
There were some areas of the public sector such as education and health where Protestants were under-represented. In the private sector the gap between the two communities continued to diminish, with a 0.7 per cent increase in Catholic employees between 2002 and 2003.
The report showed that more than just over half the workforce was female, a figure influenced by the substantial numbers of women working part-time. But there were also 4,344 more women in full-time employment in 2003, a 2.3 per cent rise.
PA