Employers in NI struggling to fill vacancies and retain staff
Wherever Northern Ireland employers meet it will not be long before you hear the phrase: "We can't get the people".
Recruiting and retaining staff has been a constant struggle since the end of the Covid-19 pandemic.
A survey this week from the Northern Ireland Chamber of Commerce suggested two thirds of its members in the service sector faced recruitment difficulties in the first quarter of this year.
In manufacturing it was almost 80%.
A Human Resources (HR) director at a manufacturing firm recently told me that it is not just down to skills shortages; it is about an absolute shortfall in available workers at any skill level.
Another HR director told me her organisation has had to relax its entry requirements for apprenticeships, no longer demanding a pass at GCSE Maths and English.
Candidates still have to show some aptitude in the selection process, but the lack of qualifications is no longer a deal-breaker.
The official jobs market figures help demonstrate why employers are facing these pressures.
At the start of this year the employment rate - the percentage of working age adults in a job - was 71.7%.
That is the highest rate since immediately before the Covid-19 pandemic when it was 72.5%. The unemployment rate was just 2.2%, which is the lowest since the pandemic.
The third section of the labour market is those people classed as economically inactive, that is people who are not in work and not looking for work.
That includes people who are sick, retired, in full-time education, disabled and those with caring responsibilities.
At the start of this year it stood at 26.6%, which is still higher than the rate of 25.6% before the Covid-19 pandemic but at the bottom of the 26% - 32% range where it has bounced about for 40 years.
Tight labour market an issue for NI
Ulster University economists, led by Mark Magill, recently conducted a detailed analysis of the official data and concluded that Northern Ireland now has the "tightest labour market of any of the 12 UK regions".
In part that is because it has the lowest percentage of the economically inactive stating they want to work.
That tightness has been exacerbated by the changes in post-Brexit UK migration rules which have effectively turned off the flow of lower-paid workers from the EU.
Migrant workers are still arriving on visas, particularly from South Asia, but recruiting them is more difficult, expensive and uncertain.
And looming over all of this is demographic change with official figures suggesting NI's working age population has started shrinking.
That is the first time this has happened since the early 1970s, when many young people fled Northern Ireland during the Troubles.
So the Ulster University economists suggest policymakers are going to have to look again at inactivity.
"Mothers, older workers, disabled talent, persons with health problems and those with low level qualifications are the key to maximising our potential," they conclude.
"It is a diverse group, requiring a broad range of interventions to create the conditions to maximise participation.
"In the absence of successful policy our firms will continue to experience labour shortages holding back growth and wasting the potential of our people."
We have been here before - about nine years ago an ambitious economic inactivity strategy was launched at Stormont.
Its focus was on those with with work-limiting health conditions or disabilities, lone parents and people with caring commitments, but nothing much happened.
Posting on social media platform X (formerly Twitter) North Down MP Stephen Farry, who was the last minister for employment and learning before the post was abolished in 2016, said:
"Missed opportunity on economic activity nine years ago with this Executive strategy.
"Unfortunately, the budget crisis of that time led to zero funding.
"A focus on early intervention can often address much greater costs having to be borne elsewhere in public expenditure."
The Ulster University work suggests a broad range of policies targeted at employers, employees and people out of work.
But with Stormont budgets once again under pressure, it looks difficult for ministers to make a big commitment.
