Demand for labour to stay strong in 2006 - BoI

Demand for labour in Ireland is still going strong, despite seeing a decline in the number of jobs advertisements placed in Irish newspapers.

According to the Bank of Ireland Business Banking Job Index, more than 35,000 jobs advertisements were placed in national daily and Sunday newspapers during the first two months of 2006. The year-on-year fall in ads during the two-month period is being blamed on an 8 per cent decline in ads placed in February.

The professional sector and the construction sector were the main drivers of recruitment during February, with 5,202 and 3,018 jobs ads placed respectively. The construction sector saw a 13 per cent increase on last year's ads  during the month when compared with February last year, while the education sector experienced 25 per cent growth.

The fall is being blamed on the healthcare sector, which saw a drop of 700 in the number of advertisements. The leisure sector saw a fall off of 550 job advertisements, while jobs in the IT/technology sector fell by 56 per cent.

"The February Job index shows another sharp fall on the previous year, bringing the decline on a three month basis to 5 per cent which would suggest some weakening in the labour market," said Dr Dan McLaughlin, chief economist, Bank of Ireland Group.

"However this sits uneasily with other data, particularly income tax receipts that rose by over 14 per cent in the year to February. Consequently the index may be reflecting a shift in recruitment adverts towards other media outlets and hence overstating the underlying change in labour demand."