IDA considers adopting 'game changer' survey to identify skills clusters in Cork
The new survey will identify skills clusters, potentially helping agencies like the IDA and Enterprise Ireland to target foreign direct investment to areas with large numbers of skilled employees. File Picture: iStock
A new initiative designed to focus foreign direct investment into rural areas could be taken up by the IDA and rolled out across Ireland if it is successful in Cork.
A skillsets map being drawn up by consultants on behalf of Cork County Council has been described as “a game changer” in marrying foreign direct investment companies with suitable workforces in more rural areas of the country.
The local authority is going to use the map to identify areas where it will develop digital innovation hubs, which will allow people to work closer to home and cut down on commuting.
Register your skills to be included anonymously in the first countywide Talent Heat Map and help put the skills of our county on a global map 🙌#ACTCorkCounty #CorkProud @AnnaGCork @abodoojobs
— Cork County Council (@Corkcoco) August 7, 2020
➡️ https://t.co/ET7q6NEV6q pic.twitter.com/kN3NXRQRMB
The project was accelerated by the council due to Covid-19 restrictions and the large shift to more people working remotely.
Already, several thousand people have signed up, a number of whom live abroad and want to return to Cork.
The project consultants, Abodoo, are compiling a countywide 'Geonostics' map of wide-ranging skills and potential skill clusters. This is to help employers sees the range of talent available, as well as potentially identifying new digital hubs.
Vanessa Tierney, chief executive of Abodoo, said the IDA had expressed an interest in the project and she'd been updating them on the work underway in Cork, which is the first countywide skillsets mapping ever to be undertaken by a local authority the country.
“They see the potential in it. The data used previously by the IDA mainly came from the census or ad hoc research,” Ms Tierney said.
“For government, this is a real game changer. If you can showcase the skills of people in regions and those willing to relocate, the winner will be the agencies that are focused on increasing employment across the country.”
Sharon Corcoran, the head of the council's economic directorate, said pre-Covid, they saw the need to set up digital innovation hubs which would help people work remotely in their local towns and villages rather than commute long distances.
However, the need to build them took on more urgency when the pandemic struck.
She said, before the pandemic, more than 40,000 people living in the county travelled into Cork city every day for work.
Ms Corcoran believes the pandemic has created a change whereby a lot of people in certain types of work will look for a "hybrid model" in the future where they can work from a digital innovation hubs on some days while shifting to their homes or offices on others.
The digital innovation hubs will have hot desks, meeting rooms and high-tech video conferencing facilities, she said.
Ms Corcoran said the skillsets map would enable the local authority to pick the right locations for these hubs, but the additional spin-offs from the information gathered could be used by the IDA and foreign companies to identify the right clusters of people in more rural areas and marry them to new factories.
She pointed out that if there were a good number of people in an area with language skills this could also attract call centres to locate nearby, for example.
The council has a target to get between 8,000 and 10,000 people to sign onto the skillset map at www.abodoo.com/corkcounty and to promote it further it will be embarking on a billboard campaign shortly.
It is hoped the skills survey will be completed by the end of October.
