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20/09/2013: Richard Bruton (l), Enda Kenny, taoiseach, and Joan Burton, social protection minister, at the announcement that US firm National Pen, a company specialising in the marketing and manufacture of promotional products, is to create 200 additional permanent jobs at Dundalk over 5 years. The company said its existing Irish workforce was from over 30 different countries with 16 working languages. |
Jobs in Ireland's foreign-owned sector in 2013
were below the level in 2000 - - 13 years ago, when the total workforce was 20%
smaller. The jobs in focus here are in the internationally tradebale goods and
services sector and exclude for example retail which include the biggest Irish
employers -- the UK's Tesco and its Irish rival Dunnes Stores - - which together
employ about 30,000 people.
On Friday, IDA Ireland issued its end of
year 2013 statement which shows that 13,400 gross jobs and 7,000 net jobs
were added in client firms in 2013 while the number of new projects rose from
145 in 2012 to 164 last year with 78 new companies included -- an 18% rise on
2012. There were 59 expansions and 27 Research, Development & Innovation
(RD&I) projects - -
in 2012 only 28% of the agency's clients did research from a minimum level
and only the count of RD&I projects was issued, not information on significance.
IDA Ireland is the main Irish public inward
investment promotion agency, and it said on Friday that 161,000 were employed in
client firms at end 2013. About 11% of the number are temporary jobs and the
total compares with 157,000 in 2000.
Shannon Development and Údarás na Gaeltachta
are the other public agencies responsible for FDI (foreign direct investment)
promotion - - their foreign-owned client firms employed 25,000 in 2000 and an
estimated 15,000 in 2013.
So the total employed in public-agency assisted
FDI firms was 182,000 in 2000 when FDI jobs peaked, and 176,000 in 2013.
IDA Ireland projects that it will add 6,000 net
jobs in 2014.
Barry O'Leary, IDA chief executive,
announced that he will retire this year from the position he has held since
2008.
O'Leary said the agency will build two 25,000
square foot facilities in both in Athlone and Waterford to have empty factory
space available for rent or sale to new clients. It will be the first time in
five years that it has invested in new facilities.
Over the past decade, many of the new jobs in
foreign-owned tech companies have been in the areas of sales and general
administration, and call centre support. Many positions have to be filled
from overseas as multilingual skills are required.
Liz Alderman of The New York Times
in
a report from Dublin today, says: "Week after week, newspapers issue a
stream of hopeful headlines: Microsoft, PayPal, Fujitsu and scores of other
companies are expanding their investments in Ireland, creating thousands of jobs
as unemployment hovers near record highs."
She adds that: "In some cases, the companies have
had to look outside Ireland to recruit candidates with the right skills."
Two companies cited - -
PayPal and
Fujitsu
- - reflected the shortage of language skills for PayPal
positions while the Japanese company "had to hire most of its PhD-level experts
from abroad."
The language issue is a serious challenge while a small country
cannot realistically provide the full gamut of PhD skills.
We at Finfacts believe that the business lobby claims of around
4,500 information technology jobs in the country being unfilled because of a
limited supply of suitably skilled applicants, should be treated with caution.
Claims of a skills crisis elsewhere also merit
some scepticism and can be part of lobbying efforts for increased public
spending and immigrant visas, as in-house training programs are cut
Paul Sweetnam, director of ICT Ireland,
wrote in a preface to a report linked to by the NYT: "Since 2010, a staggering
15,000 jobs have been announced by indigenous and multinational technology
companies in Ireland. With this phenomenal growth comes a strong demand for
skills."
There were only 1,600 full-time jobs added in
services and manufacturing added by Irish firms in information and
communications technology (ICT) in the period 2007-2012.
Full-time jobs in Irish State-agency assisted
firms in high-tech manufacturing (chemicals, computers, chips, medical devices)
grew from 62,300 in 2003 to 63,200 in 2012 while services jobs in the computer
and information sectors expanded from 55,000 to 64,900 - - 10 years!
As we noted above, many of these jobs did not
require high-level tech expertise.
In the US, the Congressional Research Service
said in a November 2012
report
[pdf] that 1) almost two-thirds of the 9.3m people in the US workforce who had
STEM (science, technology, engineering, or mathematics) degrees in 2010 were
employed in non-STEM occupations; 2) 36% of IT workers do not hold a college
degree at all; 3) only 24% of IT workers have a four-year computer science or
math degree. More,
here, and
here.
Rob Neil, head of business change and
technology at Ashford Borough Council, Kent, England,
said in 2012 on the perception that most IT jobs are now graduate positions:
"The profession does not need to be a 100% graduate profession by any stretch of
the imagination," he said.
"Couple that with degree level IT/computing courses concentrating on more
commodity areas of the subject (at the expense of theoretical underpinnings) and
you end up with a workforce that is skilled in some areas but without the
supporting in-depth understanding that is required."
He added: "Don't get me started on the shockingly poor level of report writing
and other business skills exhibited by graduates."
Matthew Oakley, group head of IT at
Schroders, the London investment bank, made a similar
point: "The skills issue is about relevant technology experience married to
business knowledge. We fill our roles with what we can find - - but usually
wish we could find better," and added: "The result is reduced productivity,
reduced opportunity from our IT investment and this dents UK PLC".
A September 2013 European Commission
report said "despite the high overall unemployment, there are shortages of
ICT specialists in the EU, forecast to reach up to 900 000 unfilled vacancies by
2015."
That's a big number and while there will always
be shortages in new sectors, wherever the real truth lies, there is no crisis.
Training, adjusting to new skills, ensuring that
education is of a relevant high standard, are important issues for public policy
and maybe the high tech companies
could pay a fair share in tax to help fund initiatives.
Migration is also
an important issue in Europe [pdf].
Finfacts:
Irish
Economy: Full-time jobs in indigenous exporting firms in 2013 below 2000 level
Finfacts:
Irish Innovation: No boom in STEM jobs in Ireland
Finfacts:
Irish Economy: Sustainable growth dependent on foreign firms since 1990; Now FDI
has peaked
Finfacts:
Irish Medium-Term Economic Strategy 2014-2020: Where will 300,000 net new jobs
come from? - - Part 8
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