Available talent as well as inroads on salary and wage competitiveness played a role in HP deciding to locate 60 new jobs at its Global Solutions Centre in Belfield, Dublin, the company said this morning.
HP is consolidating its European operations at its facility in Belfield, to provide high level technical support to its customer base across Northern Europe and the Benelux countries.
The new roles are in the area of first-line support to customers, on-site engineers, partners and distributors and the company is seeking to recruit individuals with the necessary technical experience and language capabilities (fluency in English and one other relevant European language) to service the operation.
Companies putting down roots in Ireland
Speaking at the Digital Landscapes conference at UCD yesterday, HP country manager Martin Murphy said that Ireland’s challenge, especially the Government and agencies like IDA Ireland, in emerging from the current economic downturn, is to articulate why firms like HP and Google have chosen to put roots down in Ireland.
“We’re looking at product development cycles of 12-18 months and there’s a sense of urgency. Ireland Inc’s challenge is, of course, to create new jobs and revenue streams.
“This (digital) business is a people business and Ireland has to solve the competitiveness equation. We haven’t solved it yet – Ireland needs to get super-competitive if we are to compete with the future nations of the earth. We have to have an investment strategy for this industry – what is going to attract good people and what will retain good people?
“We talk about creating a Silicon Valley-style culture – the challenge to Government is to articulate compelling reasons to do this.
“We have to have an education system that supports and feeds into this and we need to do this with a sense of urgency.
“To reach customers and new markets, the communities forming right now in the digital age will be powerful buying communities for products into the future – it’s imperative that everybody in the room gets on board with the strategy. The role of Government is to create compelling propositions for companies to base here in Ireland but for everyone in the country to innovate around that.”
HP has more than 4,000 people employed across its core business groups in Leixlip, Dublin, Galway and Belfast.
HP expansions
The jobs announcement today from HP follows on from recent expansion announcements at its operation in Ireland with the creation of the Global Services Desk in March 2009, creating 500 jobs and the expansion of the company’s Galway operation in September, with the creation of 50 jobs.
Murphy said the announcement underlines HP’s commitment to the Irish market and further embeds its operations here. “We are also encouraged by the fact that Ireland is making some positive inroads in terms of wage and salary competitiveness thus resulting in greater ability to vie for these types of positions.”
However, he said he is relentless in his continuing message that we are at a critical turning point in this country and that there is still significant scope for improvement to national competitiveness so that we can continue to grow in this market and to protect multinational industry that has located here.
“There has been much debate over the past number of days on the Irish education system. We echo some of these sentiments; however, we continue to be encouraged by the calibre of Irish graduates who have the necessary humanities and technical skills to fill the types of roles created. In essence, having the necessary fluency in varied European languages is as important today as ever.”
Recruitment of the 60 positions commences this week with advertisements appearing across national press. They are full time permanent positions with health and pension benefits. Anyone with recruitment enquiries is encouraged to contact: Lindsay.Smith@hp.com.
