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WHILE THE RECESSION wreaked havoc across Ireland’s workforce, some jobs have bounced back far better than the rest.
From niche careers like butchers and de-boners to broad categories like engineers, many are defying a jobless rate still hovering at just under 10%.
And as the country’s export industries begin to fire again and tech companies continue to soak up any the available talent, some sectors are already feeling the pinch of skills shortages.
According to the latest skills report produced by Solas for the Expert Group on Future Skills Needs, there were problems in getting good workers in industries from the ICT sector to transport and logistics.
The group’s chair, Una Halligan, told TheJournal.ie that as the economy picked up, the gap between industry needs and the skills available was becoming bigger in several fields – particularly those linked to major export sectors.
Employers are looking for people with the abilities to trade internationally – and the big issue there is a lack of foreign-language skills,” she said.
European languages like German and French were in high demand, but there was also an appetite for languages such as Chinese to smooth access to emerging markets.
Everyone needs IT
Halligan also said the need for IT abilities was being felt in almost all industries, with experience in fields like data analysis and online security in demand everywhere from retailers to shipping companies.
Meanwhile with a boom in the number of visiting tourists, the hospitality sector was also starting experience shortfalls for skilled trades like chefs.
The positive thing about that industry is that the jobs are across the board – even in regions where they have difficulty encouraging manufacturing or industry,” Halligan said.
These are three of the careers which, according to the report, have some of the brightest futures on the current trends:
Yearly jobs growth (average, 2009-14): 6.5%
Unemployment rate (end-2014): 5.1%
Between 2009 and 2014, the rate of jobs growth for engineers was the highest of any broad employment category as the sector added about 6,000 extra workers. Meanwhile unemployment sits at about half the national average.
The growth has come as part of a shift towards high-end manufacturing and design jobs in the country, as low-skilled work has been increasingly sent to eastern Europe and Asia.
Yearly jobs growth: 4.1%
Unemployment rate: 3%
Another fast-growing category, the number of IT jobs in Ireland has gone up faster than most other sectors, while the jobless rate is below that considered to represent full employment.
Those in IT and communications jobs are also the workers who, on average, have enjoyed the biggest increase in earnings over the past four years.
Pay in the sector has gone up 15% over the past four years at the same time that average earnings across the board have stayed flat.
Yearly jobs growth: 0.3%
Unemployment rate: 5%
While a relatively small cohort of the total workforce, natural scientists and lab technicians are crucial to some of Ireland’s biggest export sectors like pharmaceuticals, medical technology and food processing.
These industries were expected to do well in the medium term and a general push towards high-value activity was predicted to further drive up the need for science skills.
For a full list of the jobs and skills in shortage click here to read the report.
This month, as part of TheJournal.ie’s ongoing startup and small and medium enterprise (SME) focus, we are looking at recruitment and building your career.
To view other stories from our collection, click here.
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During the first year of COVID there was no air traffic and very little road traffic and the weather was lovley and sky was blue every day and we had good air so maybe our lifestyle has lot to do with global warming ,
@Fran Riley: if only it was that simple
Luckily this did not happen at the summer travel peak, would have been tough going. A lot of people still stranded though, very frustrating for them. Hopefully not too much of a knock on effect as I’m flying at the weekend.
@Canada Goose G Dog: It happened on a Bank Holiday Monday in the UK, I was in Stansted and it was beyond crazy thankfully I got out and home. The Stansted Train also had issues with signalling and thousand were left stranded at train stations from Liverpool Street train Station to Stansted Airport with no support at all.
@Teddy: good to hear you made it home OK, sounds like you had a lucky escape. Any delay for you?
@Canada Goose G Dog: 5 hours.
@Teddy: tough going. At least you had Burger King there.
@Canada Goose G Dog: Er, the finally wek of August is always one of the busiest times at the airport due to the rush of people returning or leaving since their kids will be back at schol in September.
@Kieran Menon: not for the Irish as most kids back this week already. UK not back for another week at least.
Michael O’Leary says UK air traffic fault ‘hits profits’ and is unacceptable….. There fixed it for ya!
“Could last days” should read “ will last days”
Any company can be hit by an IT fault. Even Ryanair Michael.
How would RyanAir’s reliability stack up against NATS, Michael?
@ItWasLikeThatWhenIGotHere: to be fair, you would think that critical infrastructure like NATS would have a back up? Seems not.
@Harry Callahan: They are now saying that the problem was caused by ‘bad data’ input to the system.
If that was the case, then the bad data would also have taken down any backup.
@Dermot Fennelly: it really is that simple. Aircraft emissions are vastly higher than cars etc. They burn tonnes of fuel every hour, not a few litres.
@Andrew Harrington: that they may but how much fuel per person taking into consideration that Ryanair pack them in and the most a car can carry is 5, you will find the aircraft is as efficient if not more that a car
@Andrew Harrington: please stop fooling yourself, everything we produce or manufacture has a carbon footprint, Everything.
@Joe x: I just did a back-of-the-envelop calculation on the kerb weight of a honda civic and the empty weight of a Boeing 737-8200 that Ryan Air uses (the new rebranded 737 Max), and with 4 passengers for the car and 200 for the plane, they work out about the same per passenger, at about 0.33 metric tonnes.
As it should to take a lot more energy to fly than roll, that would suggest the car is ahead on fuel efficiency.
But maybe someone else can do the calcs on fuel used per km for the plane and the car and let us know?
Seems A bit fishy to me, flight data input taking out primary and secondary systems, if it was just as easy as that, I’m sure the ruskie hackers are starting to warm their hands up.
Just shows you, it’s so tight,one glitch and there is chaos!
If a simple data structure or content error of input data triggers a result like this where an entire system is placed into manual mode, then serious questions have to be asked about the design, architecture and operational robustness of the UK NATS system. Any system that cannot handle incoming transactional data in a proportional manner (in this case rejecting it with appropriate error messaging) is not fix for purpose. The head of IT for this organisation should be immediately suspended/ fired
have your say