The number of people made redundant by firms in the Republic this year passed the 20,000 mark in October, and is now running 9.6 per cent ahead of last year.

New figures, issued by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, show that 2,200 redundancies occurred last month.

The October figures bring the total number of redundancies reported so far this year to 21,394. The total for last year was 23,684.

There are signs that the rate of layoffs this year is slowing, however, as in September the figures were 10.8 per cent ahead of the same point in 2006.

While the level of job losses is significantly ahead this year, the figure for October is almost identical to the 2,002 people who were made redundant in October 2006.

The figures for October do not include almost 600 job cuts at Waterford Crystal and Bausch & Lomb which were announced this week but have not yet been implemented.

A significant number of the 900 staff at Seagate in Co Derry who are due to be laid off next year are resident in the Republic but would not be included in the department's figures.

At 865, the "other services" category was the sector which accounted for the largest number of redundancies in October.

Other manufacturing, which includes areas other than metal manufacturing and engineering, was second with 630 job losses.

There were 328 redundancies reported by firms in building and civil engineering.