Industrial employment was 247,300 in March in a decrease of 14,100 from March 2002, according to figures released this morning by the Central Statistics Office (CSO).
In the three months between December 2002 and March of this year, there was a seasonally adjusted decrease of 3,100 in industrial employment, the CSO reports.
A separate study reports that preliminary estimates of Industrial Earnings for March 2003 show that the average weekly earnings of industrial workers in all industries rose by 7.5 per cent when compared with March 2002.
Industrial hourly earnings rose by 7.2 per cent; average hours worked increased 0.3 per cent in the same period.