An additional 61,900 people were employed in Ireland in 2017, bringing total employment up to 2.19 million, according the “2018 National Skills Bulletin” released today by SOLAS, the further education and training authority in Ireland.

Job growth was particularly strong in construction, which added 12,00 jobs driven primarily by an increase in skilled trades; accommodation and food services, which added 13,400 jobs; and the education sector, which saw an increase of 11,400 jobs.

A survey of recruitment agencies in the report pointed to an increase in the number of difficult-to-fill roles. “Although professional occupations (mostly IT programmers, but also for engineers, accountants, doctors etc.) account for the majority of all [difficult-to-fill] mentions, there were also frequent mentions across all occupational groups, particularly for technician posts, multilingual sales and customer care,” according to the report.

It also found that 400,000 people commenced new roles in 2017. Commencement was most frequent in occupations such as catering assistants; waiters; bar staff; sales such as retail assistants; and professionals such as IT roles, education and health.

Ireland also issued approximately 9,400 new employment permits in 2017, an increase of 22% from the previous year. Most of the new permits went to workers in IT and healthcare.