Almost two million are now at work

Figures from the Central Statistics Office show that the number of people at work in the economy reached just under two million in the first quarter of this year, an increase of 89,800 on the same period a year earlier.

The number of people unemployed increased by 6,000 to 88,200, with the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate standing at 4.4%, unchanged from the previous three months.

Foreign workers accounted for almost 50,000 of the 90,000 increase in employment over the year, but they also accounted for 5,000 of the increase in unemployment. The CSO describes these figures as 'tentative', however.

The labour force increased by 95,800 to almost 2.1 million over the year, with demographic factors adding 64,000 people. The CSO estimates that 80% of this was due to immigration.

A breakdown showed that the strongest jobs growth over the year came in construction (20,700), retail (18,500) and financial and business services (16,300). But there was a fall of 12,300 in the 'other production industries' sector.

Foreign workers make up 23.7% of workers in the hotels and restaurants sector and 10% in construction, financial and other production categories. There were an estimated 271,300 foreign workers in the labour force, with just over 184,000 in employment.

IIB Bank's Chief Economist says that Irish job growth is about ten times the rate in the UK, France, or Germany at the moment.

The economist says that the buoyant labour demand is being met by a surge in the supply of labour rather than higher wages.

'In circumstances where employment is rising at around ten times the pace of other countries and the population is growing about five times as fast, it is not surprising that Irish house prices and mortgage borrowing are growing rapidly,' he said.

He says that today's jobs data put a 13.1% rise in house pries and a 29.5% rise in mortgage borrowing in April into some sort of perspective. He says it could be argued that with euro area house prices increasing at a rate of about 8% and loans for house purchases rising 12%, the growth in Irish house prices and mortgage data looks 'comparatively modest'.