There has been a month-on-month increase of 9pc in the number of professional job vacancies in the Irish market in March 2012, according to Morgan McKinley’s Irish Employment monitor.
According to the employment monitor, the number of professional job opportunities in the first quarter of 2012 increased by 18pc compared to the same quarter last year.
In March 2012, 8pc more professionals were searching for new jobs. Compared to the same period last year, this was a 57pc rise in the number of professionals seeking new job opportunities.
“The increasing number of professional jobs available in March 2012 illustrates that the hiring market continues to improve on the same time last year,” said Karen O’Flaherty, chief operations officer of Morgan McKinley.
“There have been some positive improvements in the hiring market throughout Q1 2012, including the average pace of the recruitment process and greater commitment to hiring and job sign-off from employers,” she said.
“The increased confidence in the recruitment market is tempered by evidence of short-term business forecasting, demonstrated by a rise in demand for professionals to fill project and fixed-term contracts versus permanent hires.
“These hires are averaging a contract duration of 12-24 months and are primarily seen in the accounting and financial services sectors,” she said.
O’Flaherty also pointed out that demand for IT professionals and those with multilingual skills across all sectors remains “consistently high.”
“Positively for the hiring market overall, redundancy announcements in Q1 12 have broadly been offset by the number of job creation announcements, namely HCL, Sogeti Ireland and Blackrock Incorporated,” said O’Flaherty.
