Corporate salaries will remain buoyant into the new year, say the authors of a new survey, with executives in some sectors picking up increases of 25 per cent and more over the next 12 months.
However, firms are increasingly looking beyond pay hikes to entice managers and highly skilled workers, according to the 2007 salary survey by recruitment firm Brightwater, which puts a price on everyone from chief executive to IT helpdesk worker.
It also rates the difference between pay rates between the Republic and Northern Ireland, with big gaps in top wages earned by someone doing a similar job in Dublin and Belfast. A finance director with an accountancy firm, for instance, earns up to €170,000 in Dublin and considerably less - up to £70,000 (€97,500) - in Belfast.
Some executives in the State are being given 100 per cent bonuses, 12 per cent pension schemes, private health insurance, education subsidies or even "mortgage rebates" by their employers.
Even with these sweeteners, though, demand is so high for experts that many companies are finding it difficult to find suitably qualified Irish professionals.
One growth area in human resources, says Brightwater, is for international firms to hire relocation specialists - "due to the difficulty of recruiting professionals in the Irish marketplace, particularly finance candidates".
While a Dublin-based relocation specialist earns between €35,000-€50,000, some of the executives they hire make four or five times that amount, or more. A salaried partner in a top commercial law firm makes between €95,000 and €200,000, says the survey.
Commercial property is still thriving, say the survey's authors, with salaries for newly qualified solicitors in the commercial law sector growing by 20 per cent, says Brightwater.
A newly qualified solicitor in Cork earns between €38,000 and €41,000, says the survey, compared with £20,000 to £24,000 in Belfast. Salaries have risen in Belfast, but should stabilise, while Cork is building a profile as a place for "challenging and rewarding careers" for solicitors.
Brightwater director Brian Carroll doubts that executive incomes will be hurt if there is any serious slowdown in the economy.
"That's the nature of specialist roles - the market will continually look for specialist people. When one certain part of a business is not enjoying a full boom another part flourishes, and firms start filling roles for other parts of business.
"Take the example of an accountant. In a good time, an accountant is recruited for corporate finance. In a slowdown, they're recruited for corporate recovery services," Carroll says. A reduction in demand for residential conveyancing has encouraged solicitors to move into commercial law, the survey says.
In the construction industry, negative prophesies "have yet to be borne out in employment or salary figures".
Carroll says a slowdown in the construction industry might affect labourers, but there will always be plenty of work for architects and engineers. Project engineers in Ireland earn between €35,000 and €55,000, the survey reports, not taking into account other benefits.
"Benefit packages have become a more prominent feature over the past year, with healthcare, pensions and bonus schemes becoming widely available. Companies that do not offer bonus schemes tend to pay up to 10 per cent more in basic salary.
"We haven't seen one head count freeze yet. If something was happening, the big international players, the large multinational corporations with European headquarters in Ireland, would freeze their head count and mirror what happened in 2001/02, but that isn't happening yet."
Among the highest pay packets are managing directors of large firms on base salaries of between €160,00 and €250,000.
The survey notes that bonuses can be as much as 100 per cent of base salary in any one year, while benefits often include equity in the firm, further boosting the value of the final figure.
