The catering, manufacturing, retail and construction sectors will be hardest hit by the economic downturn with up to 50,000 jobs set to disappear, business and policy research group EIM said on Tuesday.

Most jobs will be lost in the second half of 2009, the EIM said.
Employers at small and medium-sized firms have become increasingly pessimistic over the past months and fewer than 20% are still positive about their company’s short-term prospects. A year ago, that was 70%, the EIM says.
On Monday, the construction sector’s economic institute EIB said some 30,000 building jobs will go over the next two years.