Recruitment agencies say 2006 has seen a strong increase in demand, writes Caroline Madden

What with an IT bounce-back and a biopharma boom, not to mention the rise and rise of the financial services sector, 2006 proved to be a truly stellar year for the Irish recruitment market.

"We've just had a phenomenal year," says Paul Carroll, business development director at CPL Resources. "Every single part of our business grew this year."

CPL's permanent division performed exceptionally well, he says, filling more than 7,500 jobs in the 2006 financial year. "We make a placement every 15 minutes of every working day," Carroll says.

A trend that was observed by Carroll this year was a regrowth in the IT sector. He estimates that CPL filled the same number of IT positions during 2006 as it would have during the dotcom boom.

David Hannon of PPG is slightly more circumspect in relation to the pick-up in the IT industry. "IT is slowly revitalising itself," he says, adding that employers are more cautious and knowledgeable this time around.

Niall McAllister, managing director of Acumen, remarks that while demand in the IT sector was strong in 2006, the placement level was low due to a skills shortage dating back to 1999 and 2000. Brightwater Recruitment Agency expects that demand for suitably skilled IT professionals is likely to outstrip supply in 2007.

The supply of suitably qualified candidates just could not keep pace with the exceptionally fast expansion rate of the Republic's financial sector this year. While many employers looked east to Poland to bridge the skills gap, others set up second or third operations in regional locations around the country where competition for staff is less fierce.

Accountants have been in particularly strong demand this year. "I think, overall, there's a general shortage of qualified accountants in industry," says Hannon. "It's in particular areas of accountancy more so than generalist accounting - things like internal audit, costing, financial reporting . . . A lot of the accountancy requirements are driven by European and Irish regulations."

Brightwater Recruitment predicts that the market for qualified and part-qualified accountants will remain particularly busy for the first two quarters of 2007.

"Over the last six to eight months the market has experienced an increase of approximately 15 per cent to 19 per cent across basic salaries that are being offered to newly qualified ACA and ACCA and CIMA professionals," the agency says. Salaries offered at the moment to such candidates range from €47,000 to €54,000, it says.

Construction is another area that is constantly busy, says Hannon. An interesting trend is the number of higher level jobs available to individuals with a construction background, particularly those with property investment experience. "We're moving to a more knowledge management based economy," he says. "I think there are more opportunities for people to get involved in the strategic side of business."

Caroline O'Reilly of Brightwater says that the engineering and construction sectors remained buoyant this year. "In the construction sector, demand for experienced professionals is high, particularly in the area of construction management," she says.

CPL found that the pharmaceutical and science market had grown substantially. "I think 2007 is going to see a lot of competition for staff in that area," says Carroll.

He explains that a crucial issue for employers in 2007 will be the ability to compete for staff as aggressively as they would compete for customers. To this end, CPL is now offering its clients a programme on how to work on their employer brand, by articulating and selling the opportunities in their company.

This year saw CPL's first international expansion with the opening of an office in Warsaw. An interesting trend that the agency aims to tap into is the number of Polish people interested in returning home after several years working in Ireland.

"One of the things that we believe is going to be a unique offer for us is to find Polish people here in Ireland who have gained good quality experience who themselves will want to go home," says Carroll.

"Really we're using the lessons that we learned in the Celtic Tiger times when Irish people who had gone abroad and learned their skills were looking to come home. We're seeing that pattern repeat itself."

McAllister feels the economy will benefit from recently arrived immigrant workers as their language skills improve. "A lot of the people who have been here for the last two or three years are going to jump up the ladder over the next two years, definitely," he says.

"In 2007, we have to build on diversity," he adds, insisting that the Government needs to "ease up" on work permits.

"We need to allow the highly skilled workforce from India in particular into the country and make it easier for the companies to recruit these people," he says. "Otherwise we're going to strangle our skillsets."

He also warns that rising salary expectations are going to become an issue in the future.