FÁS/ESRI EMPLOYMENT AND VACANCIES SURVEY: February 2006

March 09, 2006

News

09/03/2006

 

FÁS/ESRI EMPLOYMENT AND VACANCIES SURVEY: February 2006

Embargo: 1:00 a.m. Thursday 9 March 2006 Key findings of the survey for the month of February 2006:

 

  • The percentage of firms reporting vacancies across all sectors rose by three percentage point from 14 per cent in January to 17 per cent in February;
  • The increase in economy wide vacancies was due to increases in the percentage of firms reporting vacancies in the services, industrial and retail sectors;
  • The percentage of construction firm with vacancies fell from 15 per cent in January to 9 per cent in February;
  • Overall private sector employers are anticipating an increase in employment levels;
  • The Net Employment Expectations indicator for the construction sector fell 4 percentage points but employers remain optimistic about future employment levels in their firms;
  • In the recent past employers in the industrial sector have been fairly pessimistic about the employment outlook but in February more employers, on balance, felt employment levels were going to rise rather than fall in the coming months;
  • The industrial sector experienced a deterioration in employer sentiment as its Net Employment Expectations indicator fell by 2 percentage points to minus 2 per cent;
  • Employer sentiment in the retail sector improved as, on balance, 5 per cent more employers were anticipating a rise rather than a fall in future employment levels, compared to 2 per cent in January;
  • The most frequently reported difficult-to-fill vacancies in each sector were:
    • Construction Site supervisors and quantity surveyors 
    • Industry Sales staff, engineers and managers 
    • Retail Managers 
    • Services Insurance staff and managers.