Strong growth in professional job opportunities

The jobs market for professionals performed ahead of expectations in July, with new jobs being created in areas such as retail banking and construction, as well as IT, according to the latest data from an employment register.

A return of qualified jobseekers from Australia, Canada and the United Arab Emirates, along with other locations, was also noted, with the increased availability of jobs outside Dublin and Cork being identified as one of the reasons behind this.

Compared with the same month last year, the number of professional job opportunities available increased by 33 per cent (to 12,887), according to the Morgan McKinley Irish Employment Monitor.

The number of jobs on the market increased by 16 per cent when compared with June, with banking and financial services and IT roles showing the strongest performances.

The data is compiled by Morgan McKinley using the new jobs and new job candidates that register with its Irish offices and then extrapolating those figures based on its assessment of its market share.

Decrease

When compared with the same month in 2014, a 1 per cent decrease in the number of professionals looking for jobs was noted. July was a particularly busy month for the IT sector, where the number of posts available increased by 25 per cent compared with the previous month.

Skills in high demand included IT professionals with key technologies such as Java, .net and mobile as ongoing investment in fintech and IT-related projects fuelled the demand for experienced professionals in this area.

More professionals with niche skills including AngularJS and Bootstrap were increasingly choosing contracting as their employment choice given the reduced job risk and the perceived higher earning potential, the company said.

“The professional jobs market in July performed ahead of expectations, despite the seasonal holiday slow-down recorded in previous years,” said Karen O’Flaherty, Morgan McKinley Ireland’s chief operations officer.

“This is in line with strong job creation in 2015 to date and bodes well for the next two quarters of the year.”