Irish job opportunities have increased by more than 10pc since last year.
According to the Morgan McKinley Employment Monitor, there has been a significant increase in both professional opportunities available in Ireland and in professionals seeking employment.
Morgan McKinley measures the pulse of the Irish professional jobs market by tracking the number of new job vacancies and new candidates within the Republic of Ireland each month.
In its latest findings in October, it registered an increase of 8.6pc in the number of new professional opportunities compared to the previous month. Overall, the availability of professional jobs increased by 11pc in October 2018 compared to the same month a year ago. There was also an increase of 9.2pc in the number of professionals seeking new roles in September compared to the previous month.
Morgan McKinley’s global FDI director, Trayc Keevans, said the top three career areas recruiting professionals in Ireland in October were financial services, software-as-a-service (SaaS) and pharma. “In financial services, we are seeing a significant requirement for more complex senior functions in areas including asset management, compliance, financial control, risk management and, for example, controlled functions or roles in entities regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland, where there is a considerable level of applicant and approval activity,” she said.
Keevans also believes Brexit is playing a role in the trend. “The number of professionals seeking employment is the highest that it has been all year. A lot of that is Brexit-related, where we continue to see a big inflow of talent not just from the UK but from right across Europe, where professionals are choosing Ireland for onward career opportunities.”
Keevans also said that in October, more than three-quarters of the jobs announced through IDA Ireland were for the regions. “While Dublin is a focus of this interest, there is also growing interest from this migrant talent in locating directly to the regions.”
Where are the jobs?
According to Morgan McKinley, financial services, life sciences and technology continue to be at the forefront of the jobs announcements. Meanwhile, the professional services sector, including legal, accountancy and taxation, is continuing to do well, “in spite of technological advances where there has been an expectation that automation may replace certain roles”, said Keevans.
“The business process outsourcing (BPO) sector continued in October to be a major recruiter here. The most in-demand jobs in this sector this month included specialist customer support, inside sales and technical support. These roles require business, technical and multilingual skills in many instances,” said Keevans.
She also pointed out that a number of manufacturing sector companies have expressed concern at a perceived shortage of automation engineers and technicians with relevant automation management skills. “As a result, we are seeing candidates being sourced, interviewed and offered jobs in as short a timeframe as one week,” she said. “Salary levels in this area have increased by some 23pc in the past five years.”
Also worth noting is the continuing strength of the human resources (HR) profession, with demand ranging from entry-level HR generalists and administrators all the way up to management and director roles.
“These are handling strategic organisational requirements and programmes arising from growth and change, including the response by industry in Ireland to Brexit, the increasing compliance requirements of legislation such as GDPR, and the transformative impact of digital on HR requirements within business,” said Keevans.
