Manufacturing sales up, employment down

In the first quarter this year, total sales by manufacturing enterprises went up by 3.1 per cent to nearly Lm243 million compared to the same period a year earlier, the National Statistics Office said yesterday.

The Radio, TV and Communications manufacturing sub-sector, the largest category, improved its sales performance by 2.9 per cent to Lm118.2 million.

In the first quarter this year, employment in manufacturing declined by a net of 406 employees to 21,360, when compared to the first quarter the year before.

Most of the job losses were registered in the Clothing manufacturing sub-sector (-506 employees), the Plastic and Rubber Products (-126 employees), the Leather (-120 employees) and the Medical and Precision Equipment (-119 employees) manufacturing sub-sectors.

This was offset by increases in employment levels in the Textiles and the Radio, TV and Communications sub-sectors of 225 employees and 195 employees respectively.

Investment in manufacturing registered a net drop of around Lm0.9 million to Lm9.8 million compared to the previous year.

Most of the drop resulted in the Radio, TV and Communications sub-sector, where investment declined by nearly Lm2 million to Lm3.2 million from the Lm5.2 million recorded in the January-March 2002 quarter.