Employment by Sector

In this instance we will use today’s QNHS figures to look at the change in employment by sector, and in particular the changes in employment for Irish and non-Irish nationals. Here are the numbers employed by sector.

Nearly two-thirds of non-Irish national employees are in just four sectors: industry, retail,accommodation and food service and health.  In the fourth quarter of 2007 there were 48,000 non-Irish nationals working in the construction sector.  Now it is just 9,000. 

These are the proportions of workers in each sector who are non-Irish nationals.

Here are the changes in employment by sector.  The huge drop in construction employment for non-Irish nationals can clearly be seen.

Employment for non-nationals has fallen in all sectors since the peak in the final quarter of 2007.  If we look at the same graph for the past year we see the following:

Employment is still falling in 13 of the 14 sectors.  The only sector with growing non-Irish national employees is the Agriculture sector.

Finally we will compare the last 12 months for Irish and non-Irish nationals. Click to enlarge.

A somewhat contrasting picture emerges of the labour force outcomes for Irish and non-Irish nationals.  Both groups have continued to see job losses in construction,  retail and, to a lesser extent, financial service.  For Irish nationals, there continues to be a large number of jobs shed in industry.

However, while agriculture is the only one of the 14 sectors shows an increase in employment for non-nationals, over the past year employment of Irish nationals has risen in seven of the 14 sectors, but it must be noted that these rises are modest and do not offset the jobs lost in declining sectors.

Over the past year there has been a decline of 18,800 (or 1.2%) in the number of Irish nationals employed, while at the same time there has been a decline of 34,500 (or 14.5%) in the number of non-Irish nationals employed.