JobBridge: a scheme with a job to do?

Yesterday's Irish Times has an article on the government's new internship scheme JobBridge.

Studying Abroad and Labour Market Mobility

STUDYING ABROAD AND THE EFFECT ON INTERNATIONAL LABOUR MARKET MOBILITY: EVIDENCE FROM THE INTRODUCTION OF ERASMUS

Matthias Parey and Fabian Waldinger

Economic Journal, 121 (March) 2011, 194–222

We investigate the effect of studying abroad on international labour market mobility later in life for university graduates. We exploit the introduction and expansion of the European ERASMUS student exchange programme as an instrument for studying abroad. We find that studying abroad increases an individual’s probability of working in a foreign country by about 15 percentage points. We investigate heterogeneity in returns according to parental education and the student’s financial situation. Furthermore, we suggest mechanisms through which the effect of studying abroad may operate.

Assorted Links: Irish Vacancies and Redundancies Data

1. RendezVous353 aims to connect Irish business people around the world, encouraging social interaction and creating a platform for business networking amongst the diaspora. Here's a feature on the website in Silicon Republic.

2. Enterprise, Trade and Innovation press release: Minister O’Keeffe to lead drive to create 117,000 jobs over next 10 years

3. Enterprise, Trade and Innovation report: Jobs and Growth: "sets out the core policies and actions to drive productivity improvements, to grow exports and create new sustainable jobs"

4. The IrishJobs.ie on-line jobs index for Q1 reveals an increase of 9% in jobs advertised online in Ireland since Q4 2009. Medical professionals and healthcare sector sees the biggest increase in new jobs advertised. Retailing, wholesaling and purchasing shows the largest decline in new jobs advertised.

5. IrishJobs.ie on-line Salary Survey (2010): "benchmark salaries for new employees in most jobs... reduced by 5-20% since 2008"

6. The Fas/ESRI Employment and Vacancies Survey: the most recent survey information that I can find is for March 2008

7. Brendan Walsh discussed Irish vacancies data in the Quarterly Economic Commentary in 1977: Unemployment, Vacancies and "Full Employment" in the Irish Manufacturing Sector

8. The Monster.ie U.S. online jobs index rose in April for a third straight month and posted its largest year-on-year percentage gain since July 2007. Story from Reuters.

9. Redundancy.ie: Irish redundancy statistics provided by the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed. Breakdowns are possible by gender, month and county.

Assorted Links

1. Last week Obama unveiled a $14 billion plan to help troubled homeowners

2. Need cash in a hurry. Don't worry; you can get it here, within 15 minutes. Only in the UK.

3. Leisure College, USA

4. Human Behavior and Economics: A Survey of Recent Literature, 1914

5. An analysis of the Graduate Labour Market in Finland: the impact of Spatial Agglomeration and Skill-Job Mismatches

6. Linguistic Elitism and Gender in the Irish Labour Market: How much Advantage is there to Workers in Ireland Speaking Irish and being Male? Evidence from the 2006 Census

7. College fee regime to change in US

8. Identity Economics and Life Reconstruction

1 in 3 Men Unemployed, Under the Age of 25

I mentioned some statistics about current conditions in the Irish labour market in a recent post. 1 out of 8 individuals in the Irish labour force are unemployed. Taking account of labour force withdrawal and reduced working time, it is estimated that approximately 1 out of 7 are in some form of labour market distress. Gender breakdowns indicate that 2 out of 3 of these individuals are male. The latest Live Register figures show that almost twice as many men are claiming unemployment benefit (or allowance), compared to women.

Despite many posts on this blog flagging youth and graduate unemployment (a recent one is here); I was still somewhat surprised to read in today's Irish Independent that 1 in 3 men under the age of 25 are now unemployed. I decided to take a look at the most recent QNHS publication; the figure of 1 in 3 is indeed correct. Table 14 from the QNHS publication (shown below) indicates that 36.9% of males ages 15-19 are unemployed; and that 31.7% of males aged 20-24 are unemployed. This approximates to one third of males under the age of 25 being currently unemployed. The number of persons under 25 years of age on the Live Register are available on Table 2b (page 3) of Friday's Live Register release: the figure is 84,400. (Click on the table below to see a larger picture of QNHS Table 14).


What else can we learn from the table above? Looking at both genders under the age of 25, approximately 27% are currently unemployed; this figure is over double the current national average of 12.5%. The gender difference in unemployment is most marked in the 20-24 age-group; twice as many males (compared to females) are unemployed in this category. There are also twice as many males unemployed in the 25-34 age-group. These ratios are in line with the national figures for unemployment (2 out of 3 unemployed individuals are male). Across both genders, the highest concentration of unemployment is in the 15-19 age-group, followed by the 20-24 age-group; and monotonically decreasing for higher age-groups.

Finally, what can we infer about graduate unemployment? If we consider the 20-24 age-group on its own, we see that one quarter of these individuals are unemployed; and that males account for two thirds of the unemployment figure. Only a subset of individuals in the 20-24 age-group hold graduate qualifications; what we know about this demographic comes from the QNHS Special Module on Educational Attainment that ran from 2003-2008 (see Table 2 on page 6 of the Pdf). In March-May of 2008 (the most recent data available), 25% of the 20-24 age-group holds a third-level qualification (non-degree, degree, or above). 45% of the 25-34 age-group holds a third-level qualification as at March-May 2008; the higher attainment level of the 25-34 age-group suggests that graduate unemployment is as much (if not more) of a problem for this age-group.

To re-cap, we know from the QNHS Special Module on Educational Attainment that 25% of the 20-24 age-group, and 45% of the 25-34 age-group, had third-level qualifications as at March-May 2008. From the most recent QNHS we know that 24.2% of 20-24 year-olds, and 14.1% of 25-34 year-olds, are unemployed. However, it is important to be careful at this juncture, because we cannot yet tell whether unemployed individuals (aged 20-24 or 25-34) are more or less likely to have third-level qualifications. Though it only refers to March-May 2008, the most indicative source of information about graduate unemployment appears to be the breakdown of ILO employment status by educational attainment and age-category in the QNHS Special Module on Educational Attainment. Table 5 in the QNHS Special Module shows the employment rates of persons aged 25 to 64 by highest level of education attained. Unfortunately, 25-64 is the only age-range used; and QNHS Database Direct does not include the educational attainment variable.

Some Papers About Unemployment in Ireland in the 80's and 90's

Here are a few papers about unemployment in Ireland that I found recently (the full titles of the papers are at the bottom).

The most recent is by Brendan Walsh; it deals with cyclical and structural influences on Irish unemployment. Walsh describes the massive reduction in Irish unemployment over the course of the 1990's. Competitiveness, the generosity of the social welfare system and the wage bargaining process are all discussed; these are issues which have been topical in recent months.

The second is a report by Eithne Fitzgerald, Brid Ingolsby and Fiona Daly; it discusses lessons from policy innovation for solving long-term unemployment in Dublin. (Current policy initiatives on the national level are summarised here; and details of the new DETE Activation Fund are available here).

The third is a paper by Eric Strobl and Paul Walsh on structural change and long-term unemployment in Ireland. These authors discuss the build-up in male long-term unemployment which occurred throughout the 1980's in Ireland. (Long-term unemployment in Ireland increased by 55% in the year ending October 2009).

At present, 1 out of 8 individuals in the Irish labour force are unemployed. Taking account of labour force withdrawal and reduced working time, it is estimated that approximately 1 out of 7 are in some form of labour market distress. Gender breakdowns indicate that 2 out of 3 of these individuals are male. The latest Live Register figures show that almost twice as many men are claiming unemployment benefit (or allowance), compared to women.

* Walsh, 2000, "Cyclical and Structural Influences on Irish Unemployment"
* Fitzgerald, Ingolsby & Daly, 2000, "Solving Long-Term Unemployment in Dublin: The Lessons from Policy Innovation"
* Strobl and Walsh, 1996, "Structural Change and Long-Term Unemployment in Ireland"

How Does Under-Employment in the QNHS Contribute to an Overall Measure of Labour Market Distress?

Following on from the previous post (based on the CSO's Quarterly National Household Survey), another question arises: what is the extent of underemployment in the Quarterly National Household Survey (QNHS)? And... what does this mean for an overall measure of labour market distress?

We know that there were 1,922,400 people in employment in the third quarter of 2009; which represents an annual decrease of 184,700 (or 8.8%). However, 15,300 of those in employment are 'part-time under-employed'; almost three times as many compared to summer 2007. This can be seen in the chart from the previous post. (Technical details about the measurement of 'part-time under-employment' are provided in the comments section).

Also, besides under-employment, the 'part-time' component of employment has increased by about 16,000 individuals; comparing Q3-2009 to the summer of 2007. It is possible that some of these individuals may not be classified as 'under-employed' because they have given up looking for additional hours of work. What does all of this mean for the headline statistic that the (non-seasonally adjusted) unemployment rate climbed to 12.7% in the third quarter of 2009?

Firstly, taking account of the 15,300 individuals who are 'part-time under-employed' means that we get an overall measure of labour market distress (i.e. unemployed plus 'part-time under-employed'). The rate of labour market distress (by this measure) was 13.4% (non-seasonally adjusted) in the third quarter of 2009. (Broader measures of labour market distress were discussed on the blog before - here - in the context of U.S. unemployment. And also on the Economix Blog: here).

Finally, if we take account of individuals who are 'marginally attached to the labour force' (see previous post on declines in the labour force), the rate of labour market distress was 14.3% (non-seasonally adjusted) in the third quarter of 2009. This figure (which requires seasonal adjustment) is closer to taking account of individuals forced onto shorter working weeks; and those who have given up looking for work (this could include the long-term unemployed who are not job-seeking).

How Important are Recent Declines in the Labour Force for Understanding Unemployment?

The RTE website reports that the unemployment rate climbed to 12.4% in the third quarter of 2009. This is in keeping with recent indications from the Live Register. The report on the RTE website is based on the CSO's Quarterly National Household Survey (QNHS) - available here. The Irish Times reports (here) that the rise in Q3-2009 represents the smallest quarter-on-quarter increase in unemployment since the first quarter of 2008. Similar observations have been made in relation to previous rounds of the Live Register. The Irish Times notes however, that "commentators warned against reading too much into signs of a stabilisation in the unemployment rate, with Davy’s Rossa White pointing out that a decline in the labour force rather than an improvement in the employment trend, was the primary factor behind the slowing down in the rate of increase."

So what are the most recent annual decreases in unemployment and the labour force? There were 1,922,400 people in employment in the third quarter of 2009; which represents an annual decrease of 184,700 (or 8.8%). There were 2,202,300 persons in the labour force in the third quarter of 2009; representing an annual decrease of 64,300 (or 2.8%). The labour force decrease compares with an annual labour force growth of 0.6% (or 13,500) in the third quarter of 2008. So compared with this time last year, there is certainly much more downward movement the labour force. This can be seen in the chart below, taken from today's QHNS publication. (The chart can be clicked on to see a larger resolution).


According to the CSO, "the decline in the size of the labour market is largely attributable to a decline in participation of 53,600, as represented by the fall in the participation rate from 64.2% in Q3-2008 to 62.5% in Q3-2009." The participation rate (as defined by the CSO) is 'the number of persons in the labour force expressed as a percentage of the total population aged 15 or over'. In addition to changes in participation, the labour force is also affected by changes in the number of persons of working age in the State (the demographic effect). Also from the CSO: "Up to the start of 2008 this demographic (was)... primarily driven by net inward migration. With the decline in inward migration the demographic effect has declined through 2008 and became negative in Q2-2009. In Q3-2009 this negative demographic effect contributed 10,600 to the overall annual decline in the labour market."

In summary, what we can see in the table above is the importance of following trends in the data-rows which show "in labour force" and "total persons aged 15 or over". Furthermore, if one compares the first 5 columns in the above table (with the final two columns), a number of points are apparent:

(i) A marked slow-down in unemployment
(ii) An increase in labour force size comparing Q1-2009 to Q2-09 and Q3-09 (however, there is still a notable decrease in Q3-09 when compared to Q4-2008)
(iii) A fall off in persons of working age i.e. "total persons aged 15 or over"

Finally, is there anything to the claim that a recent decline in the labour force (rather than an improvement in the employment trend) is the primary factor behind the recent slowing in the rate of unemployment-increase? Looking at the figures from a year-on-year perspective (Q3-08 vs. Q3-09), we can see that the labour force has shrunk, and much more so than the fall-off in persons of working age. This suggests that labour force decline is limiting the increase in the unemployment rate more than emigration, at least for now. However, it must be remembered that in September of this year, the CSO announced there was a return to net outward migration for Ireland (-7,800 in the year to April 2009) for the first time since 1995. Of the 65,100 people who emigrated in the year to April 2009, Irish nationals totalled 18,400. This figure is roughly one tenth of the reduction in the number of employed individuals during the Q3-08 to Q3-09 period (184,700).

But is labour force decline the primary factor behind the recent slowing in the rate of unemployment-increase? The reduction in the size of the labour force during the Q3-08 to Q3-09 period (64,300) is roughly one third the size of the reduction in the number of employed individuals (184,700); and more than three times the outflow of Irish nationals in the year to April '09 (18,400). There is no doubt that the recent decline in the labour force (64,300) is a contributory factor in the recent slowing of unemployment-increase; however, it is not the primary factor. The primary factor seems to be that the country is simply losing jobs at a slower rate than in previous quarters. Despite this, it is important to remember that we are still enduring increments to an unemployment rate that is absolutely large.

Changes to the Jobseeker’s Allowance and Supplementary Welfare Allowance Schemes

As indicated on the official Budget website here.

Activation Measures:

There are a number of changes to the Jobseeker’s Allowance and Supplementary Welfare Allowance schemes as set out below:

* New maximum personal rates of Jobseeker’s Allowance and basic Supplementary Welfare Allowance will be introduced for new applicants aged 20 to 24 inclusive. The new rate will be €100 per week for new applicants aged 20 to 21 and €150 per week for new applicants aged 22 to 24. The Qualified Adult rate applicable to Jobseeker’s Allowance/basic Supplementary Welfare Allowance applicants aged 20 and 21 will also be €100 per week and for those applicants aged 22, 23 and 24 will be €130.10 per week. These rate reductions will not apply to claimants with dependant children.

* The personal rate of Jobseeker’s Allowance and basic Supplementary Welfare Allowance will be reduced to €150 per week where job offers or activation measures have been refused. Further details of this measure will be published in the Social Welfare Bill, 2010.

New Activation Fund

The Enterprise, Trade and Employment section of the Summary of Budget Measures indicates the following:

"Within the overall allocation for Enterprise, Trade & Employment, resources will be directed towards Support Measures for the Food Industry and a range of activation measures including 10/20 week FÁS Training Courses or work placements to provide additional training and upskilling places for the unemployed; and an Activation Fund which will involve an open call for activation proposals targeted at the construction and low skilled sectors."

More details are available from a press release on the website of the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. €1.2 billion will be provided in 2010 to support job retention and tackle unemployment through a range of activation and training measures, employment programmes and the Employment Subsidy Scheme (previously discussed here).

An additional €90 million will be committed in 2010 to increase the number of training and activation places for the unemployed by 16,300 - to a total of 146,300, bringing the number of activation places across Government to over 180,000. A detailed announcement on the nature of places to be made available in 2010 will be made at a later date.

In addition, there will be an additional 500 Community Employment Scheme places in 2010. €20 million of the additional funding will fund the call (mentioned above) for proposals targeting the low skilled and those suffering from unemployment in declining sectors including construction.

Revised Eligibility for the Work Placement Programme

The Work Placement Programme (discussed previously here) has undergone a number of revisions. For unemployed participants the following criteria have been amended:

• Recipients of most social welfare payments, including Job Seekers’ Allowance and Job Seekers’ Benefit, will now be eligible to apply. Unemployed graduates who are not receiving a social welfare payment will also now be eligible to apply.
• 2009 graduates are now also eligible to apply.
• The period, for which participants have to be in receipt of a social welfare payment in order to be eligible, has been reduced from 6 months to 3 months.

The key changes relating to the eligibility criteria of firms providing placements are:

• The Programme will be open to all sectors of the economy including, the private, public, and now the community and voluntary sectors. The Department of Finance will issue a Circular in the coming weeks on the operation of the programme in the public sector.
• The requirement for a firm to have at least 10 employees has been removed.
• Previously firms could only participate if they did not have redundancies in the previous 6 months. This constraint has been reduced to 3 months. However, the level of redundancies in the last three months were less than 5% of the workforce, these firms will be eligible to participate.

The duration of the work placement has been increased to a maximum of 9 months. The revised criteria came into effect from 1st December 2009. For eligibility guidelines and details on how to become a Participant on the Programme, follow this web link: http://www.fas.ie/en/Job+Seeker/WPP/default.htm
For eligibility guidelines and details on how to become a Provider on the Programme, follow this web link: http://www.fas.ie/en/Employer/WPP/default.htm

The Employment Outlook in Ireland

In today's Business World, it is reported that "Irish employers remain gloomy about the prospects for hiring staff in early 2010 with 17pc expecting to cut payroll numbers in the first three months of the New Year... Employers also report their sixth consecutive quarter of negative hiring activity." This is according to a survey from Manpower.

The Manpower Employment Outlook Survey examines anticipated hiring activities across 35 countries and territories. The current survey in this country measures the intentions of 620 Irish employers to increase or decrease their workforce over the next three months. The report is available here.

The Obama Jobs Summit

In yesterday's NY Times it was reported that there are six key areas for discussion at this Thursday's Obama Jobs Summit. These areas are: innovative and green jobs, small business incentives, long-range infrastructure plans, encouraging export-oriented businesses, government and private sector partnerships and training for the jobs of the future. Besides members of the business community, attendees will include several economists, including Nobel laureates Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman, and Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University.

Long-Term Unemployment in Ireland: Duration Analysis of the Live Register

According to an article in the Irish Independent over the weekend, the number of long-term unemployed in Ireland increased by 55% in the year ending October (2009). The article also states that the long-term jobless rate now stands at 2.6%.

"The long-term unemployment figure will continue rising in the next couple of years before peaking at 5%," said National Irish Bank chief economist Ronnie O'Toole.

Friday's publication from the Irish Central Statistics Office (CSO) is available here: "Live Register Age by Duration". Duration analysis of the Live Register is conducted twice a year by the CSO; the current series of half-yearly analyses was introduced in April 1989. The analysis historically related to the second-last Friday of April and October, but there was a minor change in the most recent analysis. (More on this in the comments).

According to the RTE website, the CSO said all age groups showed an increase in the number of long-term claimants in the six months from April to October (2009), with the biggest rise of 53% coming among the under 20's.

Labour Market Initiatives in Ireland

I mentioned the details of the Work Placement Programme (and pilot Short Time Working Training Programme) last month. And further information about labour market policy in Ireland. As well as the IBEC graduate internship scheme.

These are separate initiatives to the Employment Subsidy Scheme. This scheme is outlined here on the website of the Dept. of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. And discussed here in an article from the Irish Times, earlier this month. The scheme is managed by Enterprise Ireland; but it is a separate initiative to the Enterprise Stabilisation Fund.

The Employment Subsidy Scheme was originally intended to support the retention of jobs in viable exporting enterprises that might otherwise be made redundant. The scheme has been extended to non-exporting companies; and over 7,000 jobs are to receive direct financial support in the first round. According to the Irish Times, it is hoped that 27,400 vulnerable jobs will be safeguarded during the lifetime of the €250 million scheme. The goal of retaining jobs that might otherwise be made redundant is an important consideration, as this would avoid the problem of deadweight loss.

Another article from the Irish Times (from earlier this month again), says that:

the lessons from Germany, which has experimented with different schemes to varying degrees of success, is that these schemes (employment-subsidy) can work if they are structured correctly... director of Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit (Institute for the Study of Labour), German economist Prof Klaus Zimmermann has seen both the merits and flaws of wage subsidies.

“Global wage subsidies to entire industries or all companies to encourage new employment are very expensive and provide no substantial employment effects,” he says. But subsidies granted to individual companies to hire unemployed people have been effective, especially when combined with job-related training.

Although it is aimed at full-time workers, the Government’s Employment Subsidy Scheme has some things in common with Germany’s successful Kurzarbeit, or short-time work programme, in the sense that the cost of paying existing employees is shared, Prof Zimmermann says.

Kurzarbeit, according to ING, "is a form of government work subsidy in Germany in which employees get about 80% of their salary for working half-time. (The German government announced last week it was likely to extend its Kurzarbeit scheme for another 18 months)." This is what Liam and Kevin were discussing in recent posts.

_________________________________________________________________

Addendum: Today, the European Parliament approved Ireland’s application under the European Globalisation Fund (EGF) in support of active labour market measures for redundant workers at DELL and ancillary companies. The European Commission had already approved the Irish application in September. According to the Tánaiste, Mary Coughlan, "EGF funding, when received by Ireland, can and will be effectively and efficiently spent on retraining, upskilling and providing educational and entrepreneurial supports for almost 2,500 redundant workers in the Mid West." More details available here.

Measurement Issues in the QHNS and the Live Register

A number of measurement issues related to the QHNS and the Live Register have been noted on this blog before. The QHNS is the official measure of unemploymemt in Ireland and it is based on more economically meaningful (ILO) definitions (compared to the Live Register). However, it needs to be handled with care because anyone working for pay or profit for one hour a week or more is classified as employed.

The Live Register is a more up-to-date source of information than the QHNS, but it is not purposefully designed to measure unemployment. It includes part-time workers (those who work up to three days a week), as well as seasonal and casual workers entitled to Jobseekers Benefit or Allowance. A press release from the Department of Social and Family Affairs (from earlier this month) highlights another measurement issue related to the Live Register:

"the Live Register figures published by the CSO each month includes all claims awaiting decision. Once a claim is registered, it is counted for Live Register purposes regardless of whether the individual is in receipt of Jobseeker’s Benefit, Jobseeker’s Allowance or awaiting a decision on their claim. This means that the Live Register figure of 423,639 for September 2009, published by the CSO, includes some 14,300 Jobseeker’s Benefit claims and 43,900 Jobseeker’s Allowance claims which were awaiting decision at the end of September."

Immigration and the economy

Immigration is an important issue for the Irish economy and a relatively new one at that. It is also quite a sensitive one with people taking quite partisan approaches. So its important to keep an eye on what the evidence actually shows. See this paper for the US by G Peri:

Abstract
We present three main findings, two of which are quite new in this literature. First, we confirm that immigrants do not crowd-out employment of (or hours worked by) natives but simply add to total employment. Second, we find that they increase total factor productivity significantly and, third, that such efficiency gains are unskilled-biased—larger, that is, for less educated workers.

http://www.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/gperi/Papers/peri_accounting_sept_09.pdf

The Work Placement Programme (WPP)

The Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Mary Coughlan, together with the Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Mary Hanafin, announced details of the Work Placement Programme (and a pilot Short Time Working Training Programme) on Wednesday 27 May 2009. A press release is available here, from the website of the Department of Social and Family Afafirs. The summary of the plans from the press release is below.

The Work Placement Programme is a six-month work experience programme for an initial 2,000 individuals who are currently unemployed. Under this programme there will be two streams each consisting of an initial 1,000 places. The first stream is for graduates who before this year have attained a full award at level 7 or above on the National Framework of Qualifications and who have been receiving Job Seeker’s Allowance for the last six months.

The second stream will be open to all other individuals who have been receiving Job Seeker’s Allowance for the last six months. Under this stream 250 places are being ring fenced for those under 25 years of age.

Participants on both streams of the Work Placement Programme will continue to receive their existing social welfare entitlements from the Department of Social and Family Affairs for their duration on the programme.

The pilot Short Time Working Training Programme will provide two days training a week for 277 workers over a 52-week period. Under this scheme, workers who are on systematic short time working for 3-days a week and receiving social welfare payments for the two days they are not working will receive training for these two days. Participants on this programme will continue to receive their existing social welfare entitlements from the Department of Social and Family Affairs.

Labour Market Policy in Ireland

Labour market policy in Ireland is conducted by the Labour Force Development Division of the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. As outlined in pillar 2 of the Department’s Strategy Statement 2005-2007, the primary role of the Labour Force Development Division is to:

* Monitor the effectiveness of FÁS expenditure and activities in pursuit of the Department's strategic training and labour market objectives;
* Ensure labour market participation of the unemployed and other margnialised groups through active labour market measures, including the National Employment Action Plan;
* Facilitate the integration of people with disabilities to the labour market through the implementation of agreed Sectoral Plan to meet their employment and training needs.

Labour market policy publications from the Department are available here. These include Employment Action Plan Monthly Reports, Further Measures to Support National Recovery, and an Indecon Review of Active Labour Market Programmes.

The Demand for PhD IT Jobs Advertised Across the UK

IT Jobs Watch provides a perspective on the technology job market in the UK. It is possible to view (employer) demand trends and salary trends related to permanent IT jobs (citing PhD) from the start of 2004. As shown below (and also available here), demand has returned to its mid-2005 level, and is trending upwards.

The first chart provides the 3-month moving total of permanent IT jobs (citing PhD) within the UK as a proportion of the total demand within overall qualifications. The second chart shows the 3-month moving average for salaries quoted in permanent IT jobs citing PhD within the UK.