Employment in construction firms employing five people or more has fallen 11.1 per cent in the year to February, according to provisional figures released by the Central Statistics Office.
As a result, the construction employment index remained at five-year lows for February with a score of 98.4. The base year, ie the year where employment was scored 100, was 2000.
The index has fallen every month since last April although the rate of fall has accelerated in the last two months.
In January the decrease in construction employment was 10 per cent for the year, suggesting that the rate of job losses is increasing.
A spokesman for the Construction Industry Federation said that because the CSO survey only measures those firms with five or more employees, it misses a section of the market.
"What the survey does not look at is the repair and small building work in which there are increasing opportunities now that new home building has slowed."
In the Central Bank's Quarterly Bulletin, published earlier this month, forecast that the number of housing completions would decline from 78,000 in 2007 to a projected 50,000 this year.