The latest batch of employment figures provides little comfort to the thousands of construction workers who are now looking for jobs, as vacancies in the industry have plunged deeper.

The figures show that in the three months to March this year there were 12,000 recorded vacancies for jobs in construction. This is half the figure of a year ago.

The figure is not a perfect match for the job opportunities out there, but the trend as shown by the graph below does give an indication of how much harder it will be for those who lose their job to get back into work quickly.

The latest update on the number of jobs in construction will come in a couple of months, but to date these figures have not matched the reality on the ground, as has been discussed before.

However the data on redundancies up to the end of last year do reflect the high level of job losses and anecdotal evidence and various announcements suggest that the upward trend has continued through the first quarter of this year.

One of the missing links in the information on the jobs market is the effect of workers from overseas. If in the face of the recession growing numbers return to their homelands, this may reduce the pain within the construction labour market.

Forecasts for construction workloads suggest the worst is yet to come, which would mean the pace of job losses could continue to accelerate over the coming months.