Many employees would be willing to take a pay cut to move out of Dublin, according to new survey into salary, employment and economic trends.

The Abrivia/Trinity College Dublin survey of 260 firms found 44.5% of respondents would be willing to slash their wages by between 4% and 10% to work outside Dublin.

Abrivia managing director Donal O'Brien said housing was also the biggest problem in attracting new workers to the city.

He said: "Of the respondents, 53% said they would need a pay increase of at least 20% in order to consider moving up to Dublin and I suppose that's coming from the negativity that they're hearing around house prices and the difficulty in finding rental accommodation. (In addition,) 20% of people surveyed said they would flatly refuse to move to Dublin at all."

The survey also found the healthcare sector will seek the highest number of new recruits in 2019, with large expansions also in sales, information technology and customer support departments.

The vast majority of employers surveyed - 86% - said they were planning to hire in 2018, and 90% are looking at increasing salaries over the next 12 months. In further good news for workers, 78% said they were going to pay bonuses in 2019.