Almost 17,000 job vacancies were advertised in national newspapers in July, a 7 per cent increase on 2003, according to the results of a survey published yesterday. Barry O'Halloran examines the findings.

Bank of Ireland's job index shows that employers placed 16,906 recruitment ads in national and Sunday newspapers in July. The bank said the figure represents a 7 per cent increase on July 2003.

Professional jobs showed the strongest year-on-year performance, with a 59 per cent increase, and the information technology sector also did well at 18 per cent growth.

However, there were falls in a number of areas, including manufacturing, which dropped 35 per cent, and the financial sector, which was down 32 per cent.

The news follows recent Government figures which showed that the level of redundancies notified to the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment in July, at 1,968, were 24 per cent below July 2003 figures.

A total of 14,821 job losses were notified to the Department for the seven months to the end of July. This was a 4 per cent improvement on the same period of 2003 when notified redundancies were running at 15,447.

Commenting on the figures, Bank of Ireland group chief economist Dr Dan McLaughlin said that the job index returns were evidence of strong employment growth in the Irish economy.

"Some 52,000 jobs were created in the year to the first quarter and Bank of Ireland Business Banking's job index points to a continuation of this picture, highlighting strong demand for labour over recent months," he said.

Mr Cathal Muckian, director, Bank of Ireland business banking, said the findings reflected the "continued resurgence of a number of key business sectors".

The index covers job advertisements in the three broadsheet dailies, including The Irish Times, but excludes recruitment websites. It covers full-time and part-time employment.