There were 2,101 redundancies in November, taking the official total for the year to over 21,500, according to new figures from the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment.

The Small Firms Association (SFA) said the level of redundancies was disappointing and the only blackspot in an otherwise brilliant year for employment.

SFA assistant director Patricia Callan said the job losses showed there was no room for complacency.

"The cumulative job losses since 2000 now stand at over 130,000. Wage rates are outstripping productivity growth and are far in excess of other euro-zone countries. This is unsustainable in the long-term," Ms Callan said.

Some 43 per cent of the jobs lost to date this year were in Dublin, where there has been a total of 9,318 redundancies.

Cork and Limerick were the next hardest hit, recording job losses of 1,721 and 1,068 respectively.

The total 21,532 redundancies recorded over the first 11 months of the year represents a fall of 9.2 per cent on the same period last year.

However, Ms Callan said the level of redundancies was twice that recorded in 2000, with an average of 450 jobs shed every week.

The job losses showed that exposed sectors of the economy were continuing to come under severe global competitive pressure, she added.

There were 652 redundancies in the manufacturing sector in November and a total of 6,396 in the sector over the first 11 months of the year.

The SFA said this had in large part resulted from a downturn in investment, with some long-standing multinationals relocating their operations to more cost-efficient bases.

The services sector and distributive trades sector also endured high job losses of 5,636 and 3,288 respectively in the year to the end of November.