Male unemployment soars under construction industry woes

More than twice as many men as women are unemployed after the loss of 27,700 jobs in the construction industry over the last 12 months, it emerged today.

Job growth across the country has come to a virtual standstill as official figures reveal just over 2.1 million people were in work in quarter two – 0.3% higher than in the same period last year.

As the global credit crunch took hold of the labour market, the Central Statistics Office said 115,000 people were jobless at the end of May.

The Quarterly National Household Survey showed the unemployment rate rose to just over 5% on the previous quarter.

Fine Gael’s Richard Bruton said the dramatic rise in unemployment revealed the economic downturn was gaining pace.

“These figures show the extremely rapid deterioration in the economy that has occurred since March with employment down 26,600 in one quarter,” said the party’s finance spokesman.

“Full-time employment has declined consistently this year for the first time since the 1980s.”

Regionally, unemployment rose by 7,300 (26.5%) and 7,900 (10.9%) in the Border, Midland and Western and Southern and Eastern areas.

The quarterly survey found 78,000 men and 37,500 women were unemployed – with men accounting for the entire increase in unemployment.

Overall, jobs in the construction sector fell by 26,800, or 9.5%, compared to a growth rate of more than 6% at the same time last year.

There were 8,800 jobs lost in other production industries, 3,700 in hotels and restaurants and 3,000 in transport, storage and communication.

Peter Stafford, of the Construction Industry Federation, said the figures have revealed job losses across the labour intensive industries.

He called on the government to restore confidence across the sector with investment.

“The construction industry needs to get the volume of its contracts back up from the private sector and the national development plan must continue to keep public projects going,” he said.

“Employment has fallen because people do not have confidence in the Irish economy. We need that confidence back.”

Mr Bruton said young, well qualified construction workers who have years of experience hit by the downturn are ideal candidates for retraining.

“There is a real opportunity here to enable them to find alternative work,” he continued.

“In the face of rising home energy costs and ambitious greenhouse gas reduction targets, their skills could be redirected to improving the energy efficiency of Ireland’s housing stock.”

The impact of the slowdown of the economy was eased slightly with jobs up in wholesale and retail trade (+16,200), health (+10,700) and financial and other business services (+10,400).

But while the Irish workforce dropped by 14,600, the number of non-Irish nationals in work rose by 21,500 in the year.

CSO figures also revealed immigration into the state slow owned by 26,000 to 83,800 in the year up to April, while the number of young people leaving Ireland showed a marginal increase to 45,300.

It said the combined effect of natural increases and migration resulted in a population increase of 83,100, bringing the population estimate to 4.42 million in April 2008.

Almost 38% of workers in the hotels and restaurants, 19.4% in other production industries, 18.9% in wholesale and retail trade and 16.2% construction sectors were non-Irish nationals.