The economy faces major skill shortages that could undermine the current boom, according to a new FAS report on the labour force. The report also says that employers will have to learn to adapt to a labour market where there is no longer a plentiful supply of workers, and that men will have to grow used to increasing competition from women for jobs.
The Occupational Employment Forecasts 2003 report was prepared for FAS by the Economic and Social Research Institute. It predicts that employment will grow by 285,000 between 1995 and 2003. Growth will be greatest among managers, professionals, clerical workers and sales staff, who will account for half of this growth.
The report says the fastest growing occupational group between 1995 and 2003 will be managers, up 38 per cent. The number of professional workers will increase by 37 per cent, sales workers by 34 per cent and associate professional workers (people with technical qualifications below degree level) by 32 per cent. The slowest growth will be among labourers, up 7 per cent and production workers, up 15 per cent.
The only areas where employment will fall are agriculture and among the religious. The report says that only 7.3 per cent of the workforce will be employed in agriculture by 2003, compared with 11 per cent in 1995 and 16 per cent in 1981.
Between 1981 and 2003 the percentage of religious in the workforce (priests, nuns and members of orders) will fall from 16 per cent to 2 per cent.
One of the authors, an ESRI economist, Mr Gerry Hughes, said at the release of the report yesterday that the Irish education system was not adjusting rapidly enough to the changing nature of the labour market. Too much emphasis still went on producing graduates from the humanities and natural sciences.
The economic returns on technical and vocational education could be just as good, he said. "We may have to consider if we would do better to produce more people with lower-level technical skills."
More also needs to be done to give the long-term unemployed marketable skills, he said. This group is predominantly middle-aged and male. It will find itself facing increasing competition from women for jobs.
More than half of all new jobs created between 1995 and 2003 will be filled by women, Mr Hughes predicted. "Men will have to change their attitudes towards the labour market. They can no longer expect areas to be exclusively male preserves."
In a labour market that was increasingly skill-based the best qualified candidate would succeed.
He said there was a need to improve basic literacy and educational standards. Ten per cent of students are leaving the school system without achieving at least five Ds in the Leaving Cert. There is an urgent need for a survey of hidden disabilities in schools if such youngsters are to find jobs.
Mr Hughes predicts that 40 per cent of jobs created between 1995 and 2003 will require recruits with third-level qualifications. Another 40 per cent will require people with Leaving Cert and post-Leaving Cert qualifications.
The FAS research manager, Mr Roger Fox, said the clear message from the report was that the country was entering an era where skills would be at a premium. That required expansion of training at all levels.
Because of the historic oversupply of labour, employers were used to being able to recruit the brightest and best, he said. In future they would have to learn to fill skills gaps by retraining existing workers.