The best of the west

Expo organisers hope that increased job opportunities and better quality of life will persuade professionals to relocate to the region, writes Ciarán Brennan

'Go West, Young Man." Horace Greeley's rallying call for the colonisation of the American west could easily be the catchphrase for the Western Development Commission's Lookwest Jobs and Enterprise Expo in Dublin's Davenport hotel next Thursday.

The expo aims to entourage people and businesses to relocate to the western region. At least 16 companies and six recruitment agencies, with hundreds of vacancies will be represented at the event, as well as development agencies and county enterprise boards selling the attractions of the western region to existing and potential business owners.

While the perceived consensus might be that the west has lagged the eastern seaboard and the Greater Dublin Area in terms of job creation and opportunity, the expo intends to show that there are job prospects, whether skilled and semi-skilled or in multi-national or indigenous firms.

But why should people make the move from well-paid and rewarding jobs in the east?

The commission's chief executive, Gillian Buckley, says that the west offers comparative jobs with a better quality of life.

"The very high quality of life that we have here, the lower cost of living, childcare and housing being the most obvious examples, shorter commuting times that gives more leisure time with family and friends are good reasons," she says.

But some might question whether that is enough to attract ambitious, high-fliers who want the best of both worlds - a nice quality of life plus a challenging and rewarding job.

The number of exhibitors at the expo, which is already 30 per cent over-subscribed, is an indication of the fact that there are plenty of jobs on offer, according to Buckley.

"State agencies will be at the expo as well as indigenous and multinational companies across a range of sectors from hospitality to IT to medical devices to manufacturing. And that covers everything from customer service reps to analytical chemists to sales and marketing, accounting and telemarketing. The breath of skills and experiences and sectors are there on offer throughout the region."

In 2006, Collins McNicholas surveyed highly-qualified professionals who relocated to the west - mainly from Dublin. The survey included people in pharmaceuticals, financial and professional services, manufacturing and the medical devices sector and it found that 94 per cent recommend relocating, while more than half were able to find a job within three months of looking - and most within nine months.

And those businesses are spread throughout the region, rather than clustered in one area in the way that Dublin dominates the east, says Buckley.

However, one of the pluses that the east and particularly Dublin can always offer is job mobility - with such a high concentration of business and industry, people can move quickly and easily between jobs and get fast-track promotion. Can the west compete with that?

"The same opportunities are in the west that there would be in any other part of the world," insists Buckley. "There are clusters of different sectors in different parts of the region, so there are opportunities to other employment opportunities within the region."

And pay is on a comparable level, she says, pointing to a study carried out in the northwest that found that people weren't really taking a drop in salary.

"And if they were, their disposable income is still higher because of the lower cost of living here," she says.

Many companies help spouses of employees relocating to find new jobs and even if the job is in a different town, the journeys are easily commutable due to less congestion, she says.

The key to the western region's future are those aged between 25 and 44 years as research shows that this age group is most likely to become early-stage entrepreneurs, according to Buckley.

"The development agencies at our expo will be there to 'snare' entrepreneurs and of course finding the right quality and the right number of employees is a big issue for enterprises across the country," she says.

"The labour pool is always a very important decision in people setting up and what we are saying is not only do we have a pool of labour here in the region, there is also a huge latent pool of labour wanting to come into the region if the right job opportunities were available. Our own WDC investment fund, a seed and venture capital fund, encourages enterprises to establish here and we ourselves have funded more than 40 high-potential start-ups in the past number of years."

One area where the west does lack in quality is the state of the infrastructure. Easy access in and out of a region is not only important to businesses but to their employees for both work and leisure reasons. Infrastructure is improving, says Buckley.

"Ireland West Airport at Knock has developed significant flights and has started transatlantic services. The western rail corridor and western road corridor have begun. The rollout of broadband is improving," she says.

She says she is conscious of importance of Shannon airport as a key element of the transport infrastructure in the south of the region and that the decision by Aer Lingus to pull the Shannon-Heathrow route may be viewed negatively.

"There are other opportunities. Aviation is quite a fluid marketplace," she says.

Figures show that 40,000 people moved into the west over the past four years.

About 600 people attended last year's expo.

With Buckley expecting double that number this year, the numbers going west could be on the up.