Positive growth trend continues in Ireland’s professional jobs market
Mar/100
The latest Premier Group Irish Employment Monitor covering February 10 figures was published this morning.
This month’s highlights include:
- In February 10, new professional job vacancies increased by 34% compared to February 09
- Month on month, the number of new job vacancies rose by 7%
- This is the fourth consecutive month of increase in the number of new jobs available for professionals
- In February compared to January, the number of new professionals beginning a new job search increased by 19%
- There were 58% more professionals beginning a job search in February 10 compared to the same month last year
The full release can be viewed on our website:http://www.verkom.ie/Irish-employment-monitor-February-2010
In addition, the Morgan McKinley London Employment Monitor covering February 10 has also been published.
- New financial services job vacancies in February 10 rose by 13% month-on-month
- Compared to the same month last year, job numbers were up 67% in February 10, a similar uplift to that seen in January 10 vs. January 09
- The number of professionals entering the jobs market in February 10 increased by 29% on January 10 and also rose by 29% compared to February 09
- The average City salary stood at ₤51,560 – a 2% month-on-month increase
- For those considering changing jobs in 2010, career development rather than remuneration was identified as the key reason (57%)
The full release can be viewed on
http://www.morganmckinley.co.uk/Employment-Monitor-February-2010
Most Sought-After Skills on the Web Market
Feb/100
Recently there has been a continued growth of online web agencies. This growth has stemmed from major companies outsourcing their web development and advertising campaigns to specialist firms. These companies are advancing at a rapid pace and are now sourcing the best and most highly skilled developers on the market. Currently there is a shortage of expertise to match this demand. What does this mean for developers and designers? Are there opportunities in the web market? The answer is Yes!! The best way to take advantage of these opportunities is through up-skilling!
Cakephp and flex are the hottest web skills on the market. Flex is an open source program for developers and maintains open source web applications while Cakephp is a framework that offers an extensible architecture for developing, maintaining, and deploying applications. It reduces development costs and helps developers write less code which is a valuable tool for online agencies.
The growth of online agencies will continue and this is a competitive market with high demand for specialised web developers and designers!
Positive outlook in the Support & Infrastructure Market
Dec/090
There has been a definite increase in job orders in recent times in the Dublin & Cork market, especially from October onwards. This upturn in registered jobs has been significantly noticed in the support and infrastructure market. This market collapsed at the end of 2008 as clients halved their infrastructure professionals on site and made a move towards outsourcing their IT support function. From a consultancy perspective, large contracts were cut and infrastructure projects were put on hold as clients budgets were squeezed forcing redundancies throughout the sector.
After a tough year of restructuring across all areas of businesses there has been a slight shift towards re-hiring in this market. Consultancies are slowly but surely bulking up their professional services team with high-end skills such as Virtualisation, Storage and Network Security. This will ensure that they are positioned correctly in the marketplace to secure any major upcoming contracts as IT budgets are slowly increased. From an internal prospective, IT support functions are growing again. Companies have begun to increase their operational staff, and as this happens it is being mirrored by the support functions.
Although it is a minimal growth, it is still a positive at the end of a very “taxing” year.
Verkom Sponsors IT@Cork Leaders Awards Ceremony 2009
Aug/090
Verkom sponsor and attend IT@Cork Leadership Awards 2008
Verkom sponsor and attend IT@Cork Leadership Awards 2008
Verkom are delighted once again to be a main sponsor of the IT@Cork Leaders Awards Ceremony – Recognising Leaders in Technology Innovation 2009.
Organised by IT@Cork, this prestigious event will take place on 22nd October at the Vertigo Lounge. The Leadership Awards recognises some of the leading companies and individuals in the IT community that are driving progress.
The event will recognise and award Leaders in Technology and Business Innovation in 7 categories:
- High Potential Start Up
- High Growth Company
- R&D Project
- IT Department
- Sustained Excellence
- Green Technology
- Excellent in Education
If you are interested in finding out more, or to nominate, please visit www.itcork.ie
Verkom Language Open Day
Jul/090
Language Open Day WEDNESDAY AUGUST 12TH 2009
Premier Group is hosting an Open day and Evening on Wednesday the 12TH of August from 12.00 – 7.00pm in our offices: Level 4, 6 Lapps Quay Cork City Centre
We currently have a variety of vacancies for bi-lingual and multi-lingual candidates. If you speak one or more of the following languages and have a minimum of 1 years experience in the below areas, we would love to meet you on Wednesday 12th. All you need to do is e-mail your updated cv to permjobs@verkom.ie and come to our offices between 12:00pm and 7:00pm.
Please note you need to have permission to work in the EU without a working visa.
Skills/Experience in any of the following areas:
Customer Services
Sales/Telesales
Administration
Technical Support
Accounts Payable/Receivable
General Ledger Accountant
Credit Control/Collections
Language Requirements:
French
Flemish
Dutch
German
Spanish
Portuguese
Italian
Norwegian
Danish
Swedish
Turkish
Greek
Danish
Working in Cork:
Cork is Ireland’s second city with a population in the city of 100,000. It is a university city with a multi-cultural population, popular with professionals relocating from across Europe and the Middle East.
Cork is home to a high volume of multi-national companies and is very attractive to job seekers looking to develop their career. This, along with a vibrant nightlife, its proximity to the coastline, flights to Europe and its cosmopolitan life-style makes Cork an ideal city for re-locaters.
Has the recession affected the IT market?
Jul/090
Recession, Recession, Recession… Has the IT market Boomed, Crashed or stayed Consistent throughout the last 12 months in Ireland?
Two of the most common questions we are asked at the moment is “How do you feel the recession has affected IT? Are there more IT candidates looking for work now compared with this time last year?”
We decided to publish our statistics based on the Verkom website and the volume of candidates who have sent in their CVs to us from July 2008 to July 2009. This may help answer some of the common questions being asked. 
Firstly, you will be interested to know that within the last 12 months there has been a consistent amount of applications coming through our Verkom website. Typically during the middle of December applications slow down and early in the New Year we tend to see more applications year on year which was the same for early 2009.
What does this mean?
This means that, unlike other industries, the level of IT professionals applying for work has not dramatically increased during this downturn
However, the amount of IT jobs available has decreased between 30 – 35% compared with this time last year. We have seen that this decrease has mostly been in senior-end IT jobs like Project Management, Program Management, IT Management and senior Business Analysis. As a result, senior-end candidates have reduced their salary expectations both in the permanent and contracting market.
Other areas of IT have remained stable. The area of IT Development has remained consistent and skilled developers can command similar salaries to this time last year.
Overall, the IT market has not been hit as hard as other industries like construction and electronic manufacturing so be glad you’re working in IT! The good news is that there are still opportunities out there and companies are still hiring.
Shortage of IT Professionals with Languages!
Jun/090
Finally it looks like things are picking up in the IT sector after a very slow-moving first half of 2009. Long may it continue!
The types of IT roles coming in are now becoming more and more specific as companies want to ensure that they get the exact skills required to add value to their business and provide return on investment.
While the upturn has yet to filter through to the areas of Project Management, Program management and the more business-focused IT roles, we are seeing an increase in development, RDBMS and Technical Support. However, the technical support roles all require fluency in a second or even a second and third language.
It is currently proving difficult to get candidates with the right level of technical knowledge combined with fluency in Spanish, Danish, Italian, German, French and Portuguese. All companies, of course, require fluent English and some require 2 of the mentioned languages along with strong Technical skills.
If you have a strong technical support background and are fluent in any of the above languages with English, Cork is your oyster right now! We’d be delighted to hear from you if you are on the lookout or know of anyone who is thinking of making the move over to Cork.
Alternatively, if you have any ideas or suggestions on how to source these candidates most effectively, let us know!