AFTER THE worst year on record for the property industry the number of jobs has seriously dwindled.

The major estate agency firms have lost a significant number of staff and the cutbacks are by no means over.

To put it into perspective, the Sherry FitzGerald group has cut numbers from 364 to 220; Savills has reduced personnel from 250 to 150; Lisney has trimmed back from 180 to 115; and Douglas Newman Good has downsized from 120 to 70.

The layoffs among chartered surveyors have been even worse with between 200 and 250 senior personnel losing their jobs, and 42 per cent of the trainees going on the dole. Surprisingly the Irish Auctioneers and Valuers Institute (IAVI) reports that it has lost only 9 per cent of its membership, with only 5 per cent of members out of work. The assumptions are that quite a few chartered surveyors and auctioneers heading for retirement have actually bowed out earlier than planned.

These figures do not reflect the overall redundancies in the estate agency business. Small practices in most provincial towns have closed down quietly, while others are on life support.

Directors of large Dublin firms say that they are living off their savings to keep overheads down.

The Society of Chartered Surveyors has a €10 million fund to look after unemployed members in Ireland and the UK, but according to director Ciara Murphy the Irish contingent has been slow to draw on it.

Expect to see more shutdowns and possibly amalgamations next year, when the market takes off again. When that happens the property industry will be a fraction of its former strength.