Today's other stories in brief
Redundancies in 2006 up 2.3% on 2005
The number of redundancies notified to the Department of Trade, Enterprise and Employment reached 23,684 in 2006, a 2.3 per cent increase on the previous year.
This marks the reversal of a downward trend in the number of people facing redundancy evident since 2003 .
According to the latest figures from the Department of Trade, Enterprise and Employment - which must be notified by companies making employees redundant - some 2,081 redundancies were reported in December of last year. This represents a 26.1 per cent year-on-year increase.
The figures also revealed that male employees fared considerably worse than their female counterparts during 2006, making up almost 60 per cent of those made redundant during the year.
According to the Department figures, the building and civil engineering sector shed over 2,100 jobs during the year, while in the financial sector over 1,200 people found themselves out of a job.
However, the report also showed that the increase in redundancies was partially counteracted by a 1.17 per cent rise in total number of people working in 2006, which broke the two million mark for the first time.
Car sector faces challenges
Financial pressures and over-capacity will push more car companies into alliances, mergers or bankruptcy over the next five years, a survey of automotive industry executives to be published today will say.
However, the survey of 150 senior executives by KPMG paints a cautiously optimistic picture of profitability for the industry, with 42 per cent predicting flat to rising profits over the next five years.
The industry's biggest likely growth areas would be hybrids and entry-level vehicles, especially low-cost cars, the executives said. - ( Financial Times service)
Almac Pharma to create 60 jobs
Northern Ireland-based Almac Pharma Services is to create 60 new jobs as part of a €5.4m expansion of its headquarters in Craigavon, Co Armagh.
The new 10,500 square foot facility will provide extended formulation development services from pre-clinical though to pilot scale.
Dragon reaches record production
Dragon Oil yesterday released a drilling update, saying it had reached a record production of 28,025 barrels of oil per day, an achievement welcomed by the group's chairman and chief executive, Hussain Sultan.
The company also said it had completed its sixteenth development well in the Cheleken Contract Area offshore Turkmenistan, which is now adding to the daily production rate.
AirAsia lends name to airline
AirAsia, Malaysia's biggest budget carrier, is to lend its name to a new long-distance low-cost airline to be launched by its founder but is unlikely to take an equity stake in the venture.
Separately both Virgin Atlantic and EasyJet denied speculation that they would be participating as partners in the project.
EasyJet said: "We are not in talks and we have no plans to be in any talks with AirAsia. We do not do alliances."
Virgin Atlantic said: "They approached us about being a minority investor in the past. There are not any conversations taking place at the moment." - (Financial Times service)
