US multinationals struggling to fill over 2,000 posts

US MULTINATIONALS are currently trying to recruit more than 2,000 people in Ireland but are struggling to fill vacancies because of a skills shortage in science and technology.

Some 30 per cent of the vacancies at US companies surveyed by the American Chamber of Commerce are taking more than three months to fill because of the difficulty in finding people in Ireland with the requisite skills and experience.

The chamber’s president, Gerard Kilcommins, yesterday highlighted the importance of addressing the skills gap emerging in areas such as science and technology, in order to protect inward investment.

“The rewards for investing in skills and education are great and the penalties for failure are severe,” he said, speaking at the chamber’s US independence day lunch.

Many of the 2,000 vacancies currently available at US companies are open to new graduates. The chamber’s annual survey found that member firms intend to increase their Irish graduate intake by 21 per cent in 2011 to almost 1,000 recruits.

Commenting on the skills shortage identified by the survey, Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Richard Bruton said the Government “recognised” the difficulties.

Speaking in Galway, where he was announcing 100 new jobs by US healthcare company Alere, he said: “We recognise that and I already had a meeting with the Minister for Education [Ruairí Quinn] last week, along with the information and communications technology (ICT) representative groups and the education interests,” he said.

Referring to the Springboard initiative announced in May by Mr Quinn, Mr Bruton said that 2,000 places were being offered in ICT programmes to fill this gap.

Mr Kilcommins warned that any move in Ireland’s 12.5 per cent corporation tax rate, even by a quarter or half-percentage point, would generate uncertainty, which would not be good. “If Ireland loses, Europe loses,” he said.

However, he said chamber members had been “comforted” by the clear, consistent message from the Government about maintaining the current corporation tax rate.