The Expert Group on Future Skills Needs is the official group set up to advise the government on employment trends in Ireland. The group's reports are probably the best available source examining future employment needs and trends. In their own words: "The EGFSN carries out studies into the supply and demand for skills in individual business/industrial sectors and occupations..."
Check them out if you want the best available overall insight into the Irish job market.
Of course, just because the experts identify a need doesn't mean you're sure to get a job. But, their frequent reports give an overview - industry by industry - of what's happening.
Projections for 2008 are spiralling downward. Fast! At the end of 2007, the government study group, ERSI, predicted that the economy in 2008 would be the worst in 16 years. The construction industry, the driving force of the economy since the Millennium, has tanked. Roughly one in ten houses on the market is selling and every month a new batch of homes goes on sale. Prices have dropped.
Still, it is expected that the economy will grow in 2008, albeit by only a wee bit. That's a big fall from the 13pc growth rates of the lates 1990's or the healthy 5-6pc of the early noughties.
One big question is how many of the hundreds of thousands of East Europeans who flocked to Ireland since 2004 will stick around when the going gets tough. Many have put roots down, others came purely because there was fast money to be made.
However you measure it, 2008 will be a tougher year economically and that will certainly be reflected in the employment figures. In December 2007, the Minister of Finance predicted that unemployment rates would grow from 4.5pc to 5.5pc. Even so, thousands of new jobs will be created - just not as many as the Irish got used to during the boom years from 1995 to 2006.
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