THE number of people at work has risen by 200,000, or almost 18 per cent, since 1989. One of the fastest growth areas has been in technical, professional and managerial occupations, where employment expanded by 24 per cent.
The figures are contained in a confidential FAS report on labour market trends. However, the report also shows that 41,000 of these new jobs are in Community Employment schemes and a third of them are part time.
But the rapid growth in part time and atypical employment is small by international standards. Across the EU part time employment accounts for most new jobs. The latest figures from the Commission show that part time working accounted for all of the increase in male employment in 1996, and just under half of that among women.
The highly successful State employment strategy of the past eight years has been built on the twin pillars of attracting investment to provide high skilled, high paid jobs in areas like financial services and hi-tech industries at one end of the spectrum, and investment in sectors like tourism that provide comparatively low paid, atypical work for people with few or no qualifications at the other end. Of course, some of the service growth has also gone into well paid, secure jobs, including some in the public service.
When the Community Employment schemes are taken out of the equation the rise in part time jobs is 20 per cent, a slightly lower rate of growth than that achieved in the high skilled, high paid sectors. Even allowing for the fact that there are so many part time jobs in the equation, the figures are still impressive.
During the 1980s employment fell by almost 80,000 and employment in agriculture has continued to drop significantly since then. Between 1989 and 1996, a further 26,000 agricultural workers left the land.
Contrary to the experience in most advanced industrial societies, the Republic continues to enjoy strong growth in, manufacturing. While this has been concentrated in modern industries such as engineering, electronics, chemicals and plastics the FAS report says that traditional industries, apart from clothing and textiles, have also performed well. Overall industrial growth since 1989 has been 15 per cent.
Employment is now at its highest level ever, with an active labour force of 1.284 million, or 130,000 more than the previous peak of 1.156 million in 1980. However, the rapid increase in, jobs has not produced a corresponding drop in numbers out of work, according to the FAS report. This is because the growth in the economy during the 1990s has attracted back many skilled emigrants who left during the slump of the 1980s.
"As a result, the pause in employment growth in 1991-93 saw unemployment climbing again. However, since 1993, the increase in employment has been sufficient to contribute to a fall in unemployment (from a 1993 peak of 16.7 per cent to 12.9 per cent ink 1996), even in the face of rapid labour force growth.
The report adds that the creation of 180,000 extra jobs in the services sector has been driven by a number of factors. These include, the demand for business services from the expanding manufacturing sector, the growth in education and health services, the tourist boom and the demand for internationally traded services. The current boom has also generated new levels of domestic consumer demand for services.
While complete figures for 1996 are not yet available, the reports says the indicators show that the underlying trends are being maintained.