National Survey of Vacancies in the Private (Non ... - Forfás

9.1
Background
9.2
Size and
Forecasted
Growth of the
Labour Market
9.3
Incidence and
Level of
Vacancies
9. MAIN FINDINGS
Since the last vacancies survey was carried out at the end of 1999 and
the beginning of 2000 the Irish economy has experienced a slow-down in
the rate of employment growth. This was expected as the employment
growth rates experienced during the last half of the 1990s were
unsustainable in the long term. Nevertheless, new jobs continue to be
created and the demand for labour has been accommodated by increases
in the female labour-force participation rate and immigration. The slowdown
in employment growth is reflected in the results of the vacancies
survey carried out at the end of 2001 and the beginning of 2002 in a
significant drop in the percentage of firms experiencing vacancies, in a
halving of the vacancy rate since the last survey, in a noticeable decrease
in the percentage of firms reporting difficult-to-fill vacancies, and in a
reduction in firms’ difficulties in retaining staff.
In Chapter 3 we considered trends in the size and structure of the
relevant sectors of the non-agricultural labour market which we were
addressing in the report. We saw that this has grown by some 40,500
persons from the end of 2000 to the end of 2001 when it stood at
1,181,495 persons. This represented a growth of 3.5 per cent over the
previous year.
Of particular significance to the tightness of the labour market were
employers’ perceptions and forecasts of future likely growth levels in
their labour requirements. We found that based on their own figures, the
relevant non-agricultural private sector labour market looks likely to grow
by another 12,000 persons between the first quarter of 2002 and the same
period in 2003.
In Chapter 4 we saw that a total of 21 per cent of firms in the 2001/02
survey indicated that they were experiencing vacancies. This represented
a 10 percentage point decrease from the position in the previous survey
when the rate stood at 31 per cent. The most substantial sectoral
decreases in the incidence of vacancies were found in Distributive
Services and Construction. The vacancies data indicate that there has
been considerable easing of demand pressure in the labour market in
nearly all sectors.
The 2001/02 survey indicated that there were approximately 40,000
vacancies in the economy at the time of interviewing. This represents a
vacancy rate of 3 per cent. In other words, 3 per cent of the total labour
requirement of the relevant private sector labour market could not be
met. This level of vacancies represents a 48 per cent decrease (37,600
persons) as compared to the previous survey when the level stood at
77,600.
The Transport/Personal/Other Services sector stands out as having
experienced the most substantial decrease in vacancies over the period in
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