The table illustrates the percentage of employers in four sectors who experienced difficulty in recruiting skilled, unskilled, and technical and managerial staff in 2003 and 2004.
Overall, employers faced the greatest challenges when hiring skilled workers, while difficulties in recruiting technical and managerial staff were consistently the lowest across all sectors. It is also notable that the proportion of employers struggling to find technical and managerial staff declined in every industry, whereas difficulties related to skilled and unskilled workers generally increased, with commerce being the only exception.
Regarding skilled labour, manufacturing was the most problematic sector, with the figure rising from 45% in 2003 to 51% in 2004. Building and services showed similar upward trends, both increasing to 45% in 2004. In contrast, commerce experienced a noticeable improvement, as the percentage fell from 47% to 41%. A broadly comparable pattern can be observed for unskilled workers. Manufacturing and services recorded increases, with services showing a particularly sharp rise from 20% to 29% in 2004, overtaking manufacturing. Meanwhile, commerce was again the only sector to report a decline, dropping slightly from 22% to 19%.
As for technical and managerial staff, building remained the sector with the highest level of difficulty, despite a substantial decrease from 14% to 10%. Manufacturing and commerce both saw reductions, falling from 8% to 6% and from 2% to zero respectively, while services experienced a moderate decline from 5% to 2%.