Women likely to take 70% of new jobs, conference is told

WOMEN are likely to take almost 70 per cent of new jobs soon, an EU conference on gender equality has been told.

Men will lose out as a result of being heavily represented in areas such as agriculture, food and drink, where falls in employment are expected, Dr Gerard Hughes, of the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), told the conference in Dublin yesterday.

In contrast, women will pick up new jobs in expanding areas such as management, personal service occupations and clerical work. The female share of employment is set to rise from 34 per cent in 1991 to 37 per cent in 1998.

Total employment would grow by 115,000, or nearly 10 per cent, during the same period, Dr Hughes said. However, 30,000 lobs would be lost in agriculture and 4,000 in the food, drink and tobacco sector. The declining school population would also weaken demand for teachers.

These falls would be outweighed by increases in employment of 42,000 in distribution, and 38,000 in finance and banking.

Changing employment trends would have a dramatic effect on the qualifications required by those filling new jobs, Dr Hughes explained. Whereas in 1991, 22 per cent of jobs were filled by people with no secondary education, by 1998 only 0.1 per cent of new jobs - or one job in a thousand - would be filled by people with this level of qualification.

Nearly 40 per cent of new jobs will require some form of third level qualification and about 20 per cent will require a university education.

"This does not mean there will be no jobs for persons with low levels of education in the future. There will be some demand for such workers arising out of the need to replace people who retire. However, the demand is unlikely to be strong because the occupations in which poorly educated workers can expect to find employment in the future are not growing."

Unemployment among poorly qualified men was likely to become more intractable than it had been in the past, he concluded.