Construction sector jobs rise by 42%

EMPLOYMENT in the construction sector grew by 42% this year, according to Dublin-based recruitment agency Sigmar.

Also this year, 72% of professional candidates in the sector were offered more than one job.

Director of Sigmar Recruitment, Adrian McGennis said: “Similar to IT jobs in the mid- and late-1990’s, the demand for high quality candidates in the construction industry is far out-weighing the supply.

“We have seen a fantastic growth in recruitment in the past year. Over three quarters of the construction and engineering companies that Sigmar Recruitment has dealt with in the past year have indicated that they expect to increase their level of recruitment in 2006.”

Mr McGennis added that the construction sector is generally acknowledged as being the highest growth area in terms of demand over the last few years and companies need to be creative and resourceful to recruit and retain professionals in the sector.

Senior construction consultant with Sigmar, Gavin McGrath said: “While the abundance of jobs is wonderful for candidates, we are also concerned for the stability of the workforce.

“From our own records we see that 72% of our construction-related candidates have been offered multiple job opportunities in the past year. This makes it imperative that a company finds a candidate that can easily fit into the culture. Otherwise, there is the possibility that the candidate will quickly move on to another company,” he added.

Employees in difficult to fill positions, such as quantity surveyors and project engineers, can expect starting salaries of €28,000, increasing to €120,000 after ten years.

Sigmar has offices in Dublin, Cork and Galway, as well as international offices in Prague, Warsaw and Bratislava, which is opening February next year.

Goodbody economist, Philip O’Sullivan said: “Reading between the lines we see that a prominent feature of Irish labour market data over the past number of years has been the stellar growth in construction employment. Employment in this sector has continued to increase strongly in 2005, with employment levels in the third quarter of this year 14% ahead of the same period in 2004.”

This brings the cumulative growth in this area to 44% over the past five years, resulting in nearly 13% of all jobs now being in this area.

Mr O’Sullivan added that concerns have been expressed about the risks of a slowdown in this industry.

“We are comforted by the fact that so many workers in this area are economic migrants, who by their nature are highly mobile, reducing the potential fallout in the economy as a whole resulting from a slowdown in one particular sector.

“While construction employment growth accounted for the largest proportion of employment growth (32%), there was also a strong contribution from financial and business services.”