Kerry dole numbers on the increase

There is no sign of a jobs recovery in Kerry with increases in the number of people signing on the Live Register over three consecutive months, according to local Sinn Féin TD Martin Ferris.

And a huge number of people who had signed off had not taken up meaningful employment, Mr Ferris said.

“Kerry has now had three months in a row of increases in the Live Register figures.

“While the yearly figure has been going in the right direction, it is very worrying when you see a trend like this,” he said.

Mr Ferris said that in September last year 12,244 people were signing on the Live Register in Kerry and in December there were 13,439.

He also claimed that, of the 175 jobs advertised on the Fás jobseeker website for Kerry, more than half were on a Community Employment scheme or JobBridge internship.

Meanwhile, 160 jobs were announced yesterday, with the greatest number — 100 for Shannon.

Twenty jobs will be created in Tralee with the opening of Irish TV’s new Munster regional office that produces locally based programmes for the home and global market.

Irish TV enjoyed exceptional growth since it was launched in May last year, according to its chief executive, Pierce O’Reilly.

Amax Information Technologies have set up their European headquarters at Shannon’s Western Business Park and over the next five years will provide 100 jobs in production, warehousing, finance and sales in the local community.

Irish-owned company TransferMate has begun a recruitment process to fill 25 vacancies at its global payments centre in Kilkenny.

The positions are being created to assist their clients based in Europe, North America and Australia.

Irish IT security firm Smarttech.ie has created 15 jobs at its new security operation centre in Cork to deal with an increased demand for technical support in the area of cyber security.

Smarttech chief executive Ronan Murphy said there had been a sharp increase in the demand for technical support because of the increasing risk of security breaches.

Minister for European Affairs and Data Protection Dara Murphy said the new jobs were yet another sign of the growing business confidence in the economic recovery.