THE NUMBER of Irish workers made redundant jumped sharply last month to almost 4,000 - up significantly from the June figure of 2,951.

The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment said yesterday that it was notified of 3,914 redundancies during July. In June, it was informed of 2,951 staff losing their jobs.

To date 20,392 people have been made redundant in the Republic this year, an increase of 35.9 per cent on the figure of 15,008 at the end of July 2007.

The vast bulk of the redundancies in July were in the building and civil engineering sector, which accounted for 1,402 job losses.

Another 994 jobs went in the two manufacturing categories that the department reports under - metal manufacturing and engineering, and other manufacturing.

The "other services" category accounted for 1,168 redundancies during the month.

Patricia Callan, director of the Small Firms' Association, said the figures showed the "number of redundancies in the economy is spiralling out of control".

"These figures should serve as a wake-up call that good-quality jobs are going to the wall in all sectors of the economy and across all regions, due to the cost pressures that small businesses find themselves under," said Ms Callan.

A number of firms announced significant lay-offs last month although many of these will not yet have fed into the official figures.

Technology firm Avocent announced 64 redundancies at its offices in Shannon and Dublin; insurer Hibernian said it would move 580 jobs offshore in the next three years; and stockbroker Davy said it would reduce staff numbers by 75.

In the year to date, 6,149 jobs have been lost in services, 5,690 in building and civil engineering, and 5,737 in manufacturing.