Employment at Oracle’s Irish operations, which employ over 1,000 people, is likely to remain flat for the next five years, the company’s executive vice president for EMEA, Sergio Giacoletto told siliconrepublic.com. The news comes following a disclosure earlier this year that the company plans to axe 10pc of its Irish workforce over the coming year.
In Dublin to observe the EU’s enlargement with the accession of 10 new states, Giacoletto told siliconrepublic.com that the company aims to continue to invest in higher value jobs in its Irish operations, particularly in the area of sales, engineering and consulting.
In January this year, Oracle’s local operations revealed that it would be cutting 10pc of its workforce over the coming year, following warnings of hidden costs of doing business in Ireland. Oracle Ireland’s managing director Nicky Sheridan commented at the time: “This job role reduction is expected to be achieved mainly through a combination of redeployment, natural attrition, non-renewing of temporary short-term contracts and, as a last resort, redundancies.”
In an interview with siliconrepublic.com, Giacoletto urged the Irish Government to continue to invest in education, particularly in the areas of IT and languages.
He said: “What’s actually happening is we are investing in the jobs in Ireland for higher skilled work. We are actually in the process of hiring 130 new people in Dublin to work in the areas of IT sales and consulting services. Effectively we are migrating existing jobs higher up the chain and putting lower skilled positions elsewhere. Ireland remains a major hub for Oracle in Europe.
“We see Ireland as an attractive place for higher skilled work. Ireland is attractive to us in terms of skills, knowledge and worker ethos,” Giacoletto said.
However, Giacolleto warned that there were deficiencies that Ireland would need to address if it wants to be seen as a higher skills location. “I would urge the Irish Government to continue investing in education, particularly in terms of languages. Workers in the areas of sales, engineering and consulting will need to be multilingual. Ireland needs to develop its language skills to retain its edge.
“Total job growth at Oracle in Ireland will be flat for the next five years, but we are continuing to invest heavily in the nature of those jobs, which will ultimately be higher skilled jobs. If Ireland wants to remain attractive it needs to invest in education and IT skills,” Giacoletto concluded.
By John Kennedy
