Forfas 2009 Business Survey of Economic Impact now available

The Forfas Annual Business Survey of Economic Impact for 2009 is now available. The survey provides data on

• sales
• exports
• payroll costs
• purchases of materials and services and percentage that are purchased in Ireland
• training costs

for Enterprise Ireland, IDA, Shannon Development and Udaras na Gaeltachta client companies.

The figures show a decline in sales for manufacturing and internationally traded services for both Irish and foreign owned companies, with manufacturing companies suffering the largest reduction.

What do employers want?

What skills do employers want from graduates? How satisfied are they that graduates have these skills? How could graduates be made more employable? These questions and more are addressed in the recently published Flash Eurobarometer report: Employers' perceptions of graduate employability .
The report covers all 27 EU member states, in addition to Norway, Iceland, Croatia and Turkey and studies companies which either recruited graduates in the last five years or plan to do so in the next five years.