Professional jobs market ‘picking up’

There was a 57% rise in the number of professionals seeking new jobs in the first quarter of this year, according to the latest Morgan McKinley Irish Employment Monitor.

The number of professionals seeking jobs in the first quarter of 2011 was 20,000. This had jumped to nearly 35,000 this year.

The study found an 18% increase in job opportunities over the quarter. The professional job market is picking up pace according to the study, which found that month-on-month there had been a 9% rise in the number of new professional job vacancies coming onto the market in March.

Chief operations officer with Morgan McKinley, Karen O’Flaherty, said that it was encouraging that the jobs market was improving.

“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.

Despite the good news, Ms O’Flaherty said the confidence in the market is tempered by the rise in short-term contract hiring. An increasing number of professionals are being hired on a one-or two-year project basis within the accounting and financial services sector.

Demand for people who speak multiple languages and IT professionals remains strong, the study found.

“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.

“However, ongoing economic uncertainty and long-term visibility is shifting the traditional hiring sign-off process,” she said.

“Typically, we expect to see increased traction in hiring activity entering into Q2 2012. However, predictions are likely to be more short-term given the market sentiment and we anticipate this trend continuing for the remainder of the year,” said Ms O’Flaherty.