I propose to take Questions Nos. 320 and 328 together.
High growth sectors with continued potential to grow in the medium term include Information and Communications Technology (ICT), Health Life Sciences, International Financial Services, Agri-Food and Internationally Traded Services. During 2012 employment increased by 7% within the ICT sector, by 12% within the Agri-Food sector and by 6% in professional, scientific and technical activities. There is strong demand within the ICT sector here due to -
- an expansion of the business operations of companies, inflow of foreign R&D investment and formation of new start-ups;
- potential for foreign companies to win mobile investment from parent companies and the availability of high skilled personnel to enhance their business proposition;
- emerging skills demands around cloud computing, service design, database management, social networks and media, development of e-commerce applications and internet marketing.
The Government has brought education and training to the heart of its Action Plan for Jobs and targets set for initiatives such as Springboard, the ICT Conversion Programme have the ultimate aim of providing Ireland with the highest proportion of ICT graduates as a share of third level graduates by 2018. New Sectors which are small in employment terms but which have experienced additional employment growth include clean/green technologies, creative digital media and content industries, marine and maritime and healthcare (eHealth) services. Traditional Sectors where employment has shown recovery include tourism and hospitality, and also within the sub-sector of the construction industry which has focussed on business opportunities in the design and use of eco-construction products and materials and energy efficiency improvements in housing and buildings.
As regards foreign direct investment, there have been substantial job gains in the high-tech sector within both new arrival foreign investment companies (such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter) as well as from well-established businesses such as Paypall, HP and IBM. Indigenous engineering, software, internationally traded services and medical devices companies have also performed well in export markets. The main skills sets in demand within these sectors are –
- international management skills (e.g. export marketing, international marketing and sales, managing international customers and suppliers, etc.)
- foreign language capabilities and cultural awareness (e.g. mainline European including German, French, Italian and Spanish, as well as – at a relatively lower level - Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, Russian and Arabic)
- international sales skills
- marketing & sales skills
- science & engineering skills (including within the renewable energies sub-sector)
- high-level ICT skills
There are currently 1,848,900 people at work in the economy. As well as additional jobs that have arisen in recent years, it is important to note that there is a level of replacement demand in the workforce as people retire, take up home/caring duties, take up full time education, etc. This creates replacement demand estimated at 44,000 jobs per annum.
Skills demands arise not only from within the additional jobs created but also within existing jobs as, in order to remain competitive, firms need to continually up-skill their workforces. The main drivers of change impacting on the skillset requirements for these jobs include customer demand, new technology developments, product and market specific regulations and directives, and internal organisational change.
My Department continues to work closely with the Department of Education and Skills to ensure our workforce is well aligned with the skills that employers need now and into the future. As a country, we must continue to up-skill, not just for additional jobs but also in terms of existing jobs. This is vital in order to compete internationally as other countries are doing so.
