The table illustrates the proportion of employers across different sectors who experienced difficulty in recruiting staff between 2003 and 2004.
Overall, the data indicates that recruitment challenges varied considerably across industries, with the highest shortages consistently reported in the manufacturing and construction sectors, while the public sector encountered the least difficulty. In most cases, the proportion of employers struggling to find staff rose slightly over the two-year period.
In 2003, the manufacturing industry recorded the highest figure at 47%, followed closely by construction at 45%. Both sectors saw increases in 2004, reaching 52% and 50% respectively. By contrast, the public sector reported the lowest recruitment issues, with only 12% in 2003 and a modest rise to 15% in the following year.
The retail and transport sectors displayed moderate levels of difficulty, with retail rising from 28% in 2003 to 32% in 2004, and transport increasing from 31% to 35%. Meanwhile, the health sector showed a similar upward trend, moving from 26% to 30%.
In summary, while all sectors experienced some degree of difficulty in hiring staff, the problem was most acute in construction and manufacturing, and least significant in the public sector. The general trend across the table is a steady increase in recruitment challenges between 2003 and 2004.