A measure of employment in the construction industry has shown an annual drop of almost 14% in April.
The latest figures come as training agencies from a number of European countries are in Dublin to try to attract building workers from Ireland.
The Central Statistics Office's index of employment in construction was down 13.8% compared with April last year. The index has been falling for the past year, and April's drop marked an acceleration from March's 12.4% decline. The figures cover building firms with five or more employees.
Meanwhile, training agency FAS is hosting a jobs fair for construction workers on D'Olier Street in Dublin. Equivalent training agencies from across Europe hope to recruit skilled construction workers, thousands of whom have recently lost jobs in Ireland.
The jobs fair comes to Dublin as economic consultant DKM publishes a report which says Ireland's building industry is the worst performer in Europe and is likely to record Europe's sharpest fall this year.
DKM predicts building output will fall by 17.7% over 2008. Home building is suffering the most and over the last year more than 10,000 builders have lost their jobs.
But countries with a shortages of builders include the UK, the Netherlands, Belgium, Slovakia, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Poland.
In some of these countries the shortage came about because so many of their workers came to Ireland during our building boom.
FAS says there has been steady growth in construction workers looking for work in recent months, but as yet there is no evidence that Irish workers are leaving in large numbers. The jobs fair runs until Saturday.
