Labourforce worries have been among the dominant themes in many recent analyses of the Irish economy - alongside the spectre of inflation. One of the effects of the Celtic Tiger has been the inability to find enough workers to keep the economy rattling along at its breakneck pace.

As employers increasingly look abroad to try to fill vacancies, a new survey shows that 67 per cent of human resources managers consider hiring the right people a priority while 68 per cent see retaining the workforce as important.

The results are hardly surprising - the sort of thing, in fact, that one would expect any self-respecting human resources manager to assert.

Strange then that the same survey shows a whopping 78 per cent of the same managers would change between a quarter and a half of their current workforces. Looks like they're not fulfilling their own recruitment priorities in the first place . . .

dcoyle@irish-times.ie