The table compares the percentages of difficulties in finding employees encountered by employers in four sectors in 2003 and 2004.
Overall, while difficulty in finding skilled and unskilled workers increased across sectors except for commerce, the figures for seeking technical and managerial employees fell in all sectors. Finding trained workers was consistently the most common problem, followed by finding untrained ones, whereas shortages of technical and managerial staff were the least reported.
Regarding skilled workers, 45%, 42%, and 41% of manufacturing, building, and services companies, respectively, struggled to employ them in 2003. The proportions for these three areas then increased modestly, with the biggest rise to 51% for manufacturing, whereas those of commerce fell slightly from 47% to 41%.
A similar pattern was observed in finding unskilled workers, with each 2% rise for manufacturing and building, and a slight 3% decrease for commerce. The most significant increase of 9% to 29% was seen in services, becoming the field that faced the greatest shortages.
By contrast, shortages of technical and managerial employees decreased across the four industries, with decreases ranging between 2% and 4%. In both years, building confronted the biggest challenge in finding technical and managerial staff, recording 14% in 2003 and 10% in 2004.