It has been another bumper year for jobs. Unemployment is now at a record low and more jobs have come on stream than anyone could have imagined.

The coming year looks set to be no different and economists say the only limit on the volume of new jobs is the number of people willing to take them up.

Certainly anyone with expertise in financial services, software, engineering, languages and, of course, all construction skills will be more sought after here than almost everywhere else.

This buoyancy was hardly imaginable only five - never mind 10 - years ago. Every area of the jobs market has been totally transformed. Just a decade ago there were long queues for jobs at fast food outlets; now almost every retail outlet has a notice stuck to its window seeking employees to work whatever hours suit them.

Only the lucky among graduates were able to get jobs here and the rest emigrated. Now graduates are still emigrating but for the experience and nearly always out of choice. Of course this turnaround has brought with it some corresponding costs, of which the stretched transport system and exorbitant house prices are just some of the more obvious examples.

Nevertheless, there is no sign of the economy slowing down and demands for new workers should go on increasing in order to meet that demand.

According to Mr Jim Power, chief economist at Bank of Ireland, the recent £1 billion-plus Budget (€1.27 billion) is likely to add even more fuel to the fire and the economy will probably grow at about 8 per cent next year from 9 per cent this year. It is chiefly the lack of available labour which will hold it back which explains the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy's most recent Budget and his attempts to encourage more married women back to work.

Nearly 100,000 more people are in work than in 1998, bringing the total number now in employment to around 1.6 million. Some 30,000 of these came off the Live Register and many others are students working part-time, married women and those over 60.

According to Mr Power, about 65,000 jobs will be created in 2000, simply because that is likely to be the maximum number of people who will be available for work. Of those around 30,000 will be either returned emigrants or immigrants, with the rest being married women and school and college leavers.

Jobs are likely to be created in similar areas to last year where much of the growth was in the services sector, particularly communications and financial services. Hotels, restaurants, the retail trade, building and construction also have been recruiting widely and this will continue.

Large numbers of software jobs have been created this year in companies as diverse as Insilco Teoranta and Siebel Systems in Galway and Intel and Hewlett Packard in Dublin.

The IT sector will continue to demand lots of workers, despite the fact that the Y2K issue has disappeared. According to Mr Power, the Republic's position as a hub for e-commerce will be enhanced further, attracting thousands of new jobs.

Companies such as Hewlett Packard and Intel will be recruiting this year along with hundreds of others in those sectors. However, the National Development Plan which has earmarked some £40 billion of spending over the next seven years also means ongoing huge demand for workers in construction.

Many trades are now paid higher wages here than in the UK and British workers are arriving here in large numbers.

The downside is that all of this puts pressure on services and it will be several years before the projects outlined in the National Development Plan are implemented. The poor quality of the physical infrastructure and gridlock around the capital makes commuting very difficult. Dublin Corporation is doing its best to dissuade motorists from using the city centre but it will be some time before new taxi licences, new buses and the LUAS light rail system come on stream.

Housing is another disincentive to living here. Many who have been living abroad are happy with renting but rents are high and there is little security of tenure, far more akin to the British situation than to the Continent.

But it is in house prices where the difference can really be felt. They have been rising so rapidly that many people who could have aspired to owning a home can no longer do so, or at least not in the same location as the past. But with property prices rising again in the south-east of England, many who own property there can probably quite easily find a home here for a similar price.

There is some good news too, particularly for single people who are looking to live here. In this year's Budget the threshold for paying the higher rate of tax was raised to £17,000 with a proposal to raise that to £28,000 in three year's time. At the same time the standard rate was cut to 22 per cent. The higher rate is payable at 44 per cent which is not significantly above the rate payable in the UK.

Of course, single people are still far better off under the UK tax code. But despite the changes announced in the Budget which involve a move to UK-style individualisation, one-earner married couples are still better off under the Irish tax code.