Concern as job creation slows to a crawl

MORE jobs were created than lost in the past year, but overall employment growth has nearly slowed to a halt, with fewer than 600 people joining the workforce for every month.

The numbers in employment grew slightly by the second quarter of this year, with the bulk of new jobs in trade, health and finance. But job numbers in construction plummeted.

Our potential labour force stands at 2.23 million, but about 115,000 of these people are jobless.

While the numbers of females in jobs rose by 21,500, male employment fell by 14,600 over the year up until mid-2008. This was the sharpest decline in male jobs in 15 years, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) figures revealed.

Economists played down any comfort in the modest annual employment growth, pointing out that unemployment rose sharply by 15% in the second quarter between March and May.

The drop in construction jobs by 26,800, or 9.5% for the year, was the main source of the slowdown, noted FÁS, The training and employment agency’s economist, Brian McCormick, warned worse was yet to come.

“The average unemployment rate for 2009 looks like it will exceed 7%, with the precise nature of this increase being partly determined by the magnitude of the migratory response to the reduction in job opportunities, especially in the construction sector.”

The Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed said redundancy figures for July showed stresses continuing in construction and manufacturing. It called on state agencies to maximise efforts at attracting investment to replace lost jobs.

Despite the gloomy news the CSO said self-employed numbers rose by 8,900 in the year up to the second quarter in 2008.

This increase was mainly in agriculture from farmers declaring their status and leaving the construction sector completely.

Part-time jobs for the period grew by about 11,000, but this was offset by a drop of more than 4,000 in full-time positions.

EU accession state employees were the fastest-growing group in the labour force.

However, while overall foreigners in employment rose by 21,500 in the year, there was a fall of 14,600 in employment for Irish citizens.

SIPTU last night called for an urgent re-skilling of unemployed people.

A serious skills mismatch was emerging, it has warned. Unemployment statistics

* 1,100 construction jobs were lost every week during the first six months of the year.

* 750 men lost jobs every week — the highest level of losses since 1992.

* 584 women got jobs every week.

* 342 people a week were re-classed as self-employed.

* 777 managers, administrators, professional and technical jobs were created every week.

* 426 part-time jobs created every week.