Hiring platform says job vacancy growth ‘levelling out’

The number of job vacancies in Ireland continued to grow in the second quarter of 2022 but there are some signs that the rate of growth is beginning to slow, suggesting more normal labour market conditions could be emerging.

New figures from IrishJobs.ie show the number of job vacancies increased quarter-on-quarter by 4 per cent between April and June, up slightly from 3 per cent in the first quarter of the year. It suggests that the rate of quarterly growth is “levelling out”, the hiring platform said.

While there were 15 per cent more jobs available between April and June compared to the same period last year, this is a deceleration from the 44 per cent growth rate in the first quarter of the year. Overall the latest index “highlights a continued stabilisation in the number of job vacancies available across the country”.

That stabilisation is more evident in some sectors than others, according to the figures. In the IT sector vacancies increased just 1 per cent quarter-on-quarter and were down 12 per cent year-on-year.

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The opposite is the case in the banking and financial services sector – where vacancies increased by 6 per cent between the first and second quarters of 2022 – where banks are struggling to fill the hiring gap left by the departures of KBC Bank and Ulster Bank, IrishJobs said.

The industries that experienced the worst of the pandemic are still those that have the greatest demand for talent, the figures show. Vacancies in the hotels and catering sector were up a staggering 61 per cent from the second quarter of last year, while advertisements in the tourism, travel and airlines sector more than doubled year-on-year and were up 15 per cent from the first quarter.

Jane Lorigan, chief executive of IrishJobs’ parent company Saongroup, said the index shows that the trend of stabilisation, first observed in the January to April index, continued into the second quarter.

She said that with inflation and geopolitical uncertainty dominating the agenda, employers are becoming “more cautious” about expansion. “That said, the overall volume of jobs remains high, with a number of industries, including tourism, travel and hospitality, still trying to recover staff numbers.”