Forecasting the Future Skills Needs of NI

Forecasting future skills needs
A report commissioned by the local Department for Employment and Learning (DEL) examines the workforce skills needed in N Ireland up to 2020.

The report itself is 205 pages long! We haven't tried to summarise it for you but we have identified some information that may be of interest for you.
Alarmingly, the forecast is for just a net 5000 new jobs per annum from now to 2020; compare that to the net 20,000 created in 2005 alone. The 5k growth is, however, more sustainable for an economy of our size. Despite the present gloom and doom the outlook is not all bad – with the economy predicted to undergo a transformation towards more skills hungry sectors and occupations. Priority skills areas are identified as financial and business services, ICT, life sciences and hi-tech manufacturing. And there will be a growing demand for a workforce with NQF Levels 4-8 – up from 28% in 2005 to between 43 and 49% by 2020.