Average weekly earnings for Irish builders fell by one per cent in the 12 months leading to September, the Central Statistics Office has revealed.

The figure represents around €8.50 less pay per week.

Despite hourly rates increasing by one percent, the earning potential of builders dropped due to reduced working hours, which fell by around 2% to 43.2 hours per week.

-- Advertisement --

Unskilled adult workers' weekly pay fell by 2.4% on average, during the year proceeding September. This brought the average weekly wage to €808.80.

Hourly rates per hour creped up by 4cent, bringing average hourly labour costs to €17.49.

The figures also show that the numbers of hours worked each week decreased from 47.2 to 46.0.

Skilled operatives saw their weekly earnings decrease by 2.3% from €922.98 to €901.47 over the same period.

The hourly rate rose from €20.64 to €20.76 and the number of hours worked each week decreased from 44.7 to 43.4.

The CSO's figures come amid predictions of a loss of a further 30,000 construction jobs next year.

(PR/JM)