The Irish e-business market will be worth almost £5 billion (€6.4 billion) by 2003 according to Recruitment's eVolution, a new report from Amarach Consulting.

The report, commissioned by Irish-based e-business executive search consultants, Mitchell James, was designed to identify the key skills required to attract top leadership and management to drive forward the "new economy" company.

It found that the growth of ebusiness would create an unprecedented boost in employment in Internet-related companies as well as the e-commerce divisions of more traditional businesses.

It indicated that investors considered strong management teams and people skills more important than technology when considering which new e-business company to support.

Finding skilled staff and holding on to them will be one of the greatest barriers to the continuing growth of Irish e-business companies, the report said. Investment in e-business was expanding substantially, it said, but the skills pool was "continuously depleted".

Commenting on the findings, the managing director of Mitchell James, Ms Rachel Shelmerdine, said: "It is essential that a dedicated recruitment and retention strategy is established at the startup stage" in order to successfully manage the speed of growth of a typical e-business.

"Companies need to realise that this is every bit as important as their business generation and technical development strategies," she added.

The study was based on a series of interviews with venture capitalists and "pure play" Internet companies in Ireland, Europe and the US, and confirmed that skills shortages were an international rather than just an Irish problem.