IRELAND is expected to have another good year of employment growth in 2025, according to projections by financial services firm Davy.
Despite recent global economic challenges, including trade disruptions from US tariffs, the company anticipates a workforce expansion of up to 3% next year.
This comes even as Ireland’s unemployment rate has seen a minor rise and official figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) showed a small decline in overall employment for June.
Data indicates that the male employment index fell by 0.3% during the month, while the female index dipped by 0.2%.
Among age groups, teenagers aged 15 to 19 experienced the sharpest drop, with a 2.6% decrease in employment, while the services sector registered the most significant fall at 2.3%.
There was also a big drop of 1.5% in the agriculture, forestry, and fishing sector, with Davy noting that the overall trend is still positive, even though there have been some short-term drops.
In the second quarter of 2025, job growth was 2.5%, which is a small increase from the first quarter's 2.3%.
Industries that pay more are still in charge, and they are responsible for most of the new jobs.
Davy's historical data shows that this trend of hiring more people in the spring will likely continue until 2025, which could lead to an increase of about 75,000 jobs from March to June.
In 2023 and 2024, on the other hand, the same time periods saw increases of 69,000 and 72,000 jobs, respectively.
Sectoral analysis also shows that industries that pay more have always had more job growth than industries that pay less.
In the first half of 2025, jobs in high-skilled fields grew almost 1% faster than jobs in low-paying fields.
Younger workers, especially those in their early twenties, are also getting better chances.
In the second quarter, year-over-year payroll growth for this group rose to 1.9%, up from 1.3% in Q1 and 1.2% during the same time last year.
Other age groups also saw steady growth.
See More: Economy, Irish Jobs, Jobs Market
