Colleges adding to skills shortage, say firms

Irish universities are producing too many graduates in areas where there are no jobs available, according to the head of one of the country’s leading manufacturing companies.

Speaking at the third Global Irish Economic Forum, which opened in Dublin yesterday, chairman and chief executive of Glen Dimplex Seán O’Driscoll said one of the major issues that needed to be addressed was the huge shortage of skills in the economy at a time when 420,000 people were out of work.

“There has been a lot of discussion in Ireland about competitiveness and the focus has been on costs and rightly so, but being competitive is about more than costs,” said Mr O’Driscoll. “One of the issues we have in this country is that we have a great mismatch of skills across the economy.