Engineering recruitment agents and industry experts offer Susan Barry their predictions of the difficulties to be expected in sourcing engineers this year and their suggestions on how to avoid recruitment shortages in future. In July 2003, the Expert Croup on Future Skills Needs (EGFSN) published the Demand and Supply for Engineers and Engineering Technicians. At the time, the report acknowledged a downturn in ICT sector employment and a levelling off of construction industry employment. The pharmachem and medical devices sectors, it reported, would continue to grow. Tackling a declining interest in engineering courses was identified as a priority issue. Eamon Cahill, Senior Policy Analyst with Forfas, forming part of the Secretariat which helped produce that ECFSN report, updated the Engineers Journal on the situation heading into 2005: "It now seems like our more positive predictions are the ones turning out to be true. There has been an upturn in interest in engineering by secondary students evidenced by a rise in the number of points needed for engineering courses this year compared to 2003." he said. 'There will be a lot of construction because of company expansion so, for mechanical and construction engineers, there will be jobs we were projecting shortfalls in computing and ICT, but it has been a lesser shortfall than feared the surplus of civil engineers [due to the NDP] should filter into follow-on National Development Plans when the NDP ends in 2006."
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