BANK OF IRELAND BUSINESS BANKING'S JOB INDEX SHOWS INCREASE OF 10% IN RECRUITMENT ADVERTISING

PROFESSIONAL AND IT/TECH SECTOR CONTINUE POSITIVE TREND

17,857 recruitment advertisements were placed in the national daily and Sunday newspapers in October, according to the Bank of Ireland Business Banking Job Index published today, (Sunday, 7th November 2004).

This figure represents a 10% increase over October 2003 with the highest monthly increases year-on-year in the professional (+47%), IT/Tech (+40%) and healthcare (+16%) sectors. The retail (+21%) sector also continued its upward trend recording the highest number of job advertisements placed for the sector since January of this year.

This positive trend is reaffirmed by the most recent notified redundancy figures just released by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, which saw a 15.5% drop on the October '03 redundancy figures.

Despite the overall increase, there was some sectoral decline recorded compared to October 2003. The manufacturing (-45%), leisure (-14%) and financial (-8%) sectors all continued the downward trend that they showed in September. There were also slight declines in the educational (-5%) and construction (-4%) sectors.

Commenting on the findings of the Job Index, Mr. Cathal Muckian, Director, Bank of Ireland Business Banking said: "This month's results are good news for Irish business. The Job Index has performed strongly for several months now and this is further evidenced by many other economic indicators, all of which point to positive sustained economic growth. The increase in recruitment in the professional, IT and retail sectors is particularly encouraging. This demand for labour, however, must be satisfied if businesses are to reap the benefits of economic growth and satisfy customer requirements. Bank of Ireland Business Banking is also witnessing an increase in business activity across a number of key growth sectors, such as the convenience retail sector, where development/expansion funding demands have increased dramatically over last year".

Dr. Dan McLaughlin, Bank of Ireland Group Chief Economist stated, "The news on the Irish economy has been uniformly positive in recent months and growth in the second half of the year looks to be stronger than the 5% recorded in H1. The labour market is certainly tightening and the ongoing growth in the Bank of Ireland Job index is consistent with other indicators on job trends such as the Live Register, which has been on a downward trend over the last fifteen months. Irish exports have also picked up momentum in recent months which augurs well for employment creation and it is interesting to see that IT recruitment has turned strongly positive, as exports in that sector have also shown signs of improvement after a few weak years".

For reference;
Anne Mathews
Media Relations
Bank of Ireland Group
Tel:01 6043836 / 087 2460358

Liam D'Arcy
Manager Sectors Manager
Bank of Ireland Business Banking
Tel:01 604 3713 / 086-8257734

Note to Editors:

About Bank of Ireland Business Banking

Bank of Ireland is the number one Bank for business in Ireland with dedicated business managers available through each of its 270 strong nationwide branch network. Bank of Ireland Business Banking now provides almost 100 business loans per day to all types of businesses ranging from start-ups to high-growth firms.

The Bank of Ireland business offer encompasses the full range of day-to-day business banking services as well as specialist Treasury, Commercial Finance, Credit card, Life Assurance planning services and Venture Capital. These business services are complemented by Bank of Ireland's Specialist Business Bank (SBB), a dedicated unit which assists Bank of Ireland branches and customers with more complex and specialist financial packages. Over 60,000 customers have registered for its "Business On Line" service.