With full employment and opportunities for career development aplenty, the past 12 months have been good ones for job seekers.
According to the CSO’s most recent Labour Force Survey, published in late November, the estimated employment rate for people aged 15-64 years was 75.3 per cent in Q3 2024, up 1.1 per cent on the same period last year and the highest rate recorded since the series began in 1998.
Unemployment, at 4.5 per cent, had fallen by 0.1 per cent compared with Q3 of 2023, and was down 0.2 per cent on an annualised basis. With anything under 5 per cent generally accepted as full employment, it represents a very tight labour market indeed.
In fact, in the 12 months to Q3, the number of people in employment in Ireland rose by 3.7 per cent, equivalent to 98,600 more people working now than a year ago.
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For employers, navigating a tight labour market is tricky – both pay and churn rates rise. But there is still some headroom, given that of the roughly 2.8 million people at work here now, just over half a million work part-time, and 127,000 of those are classified as underemployed, meaning they would like to work more.
The largest increase in employment by economic sector came from what the CSO classes as professional, scientific and technical activities, up by 21,400 people. The largest decrease was in what it terms administrative and support service activities, which fell by 8,300.
In terms of hours worked in Q3 2024, accommodation and food service activities saw the largest increase, with administrative and support service activities showing the largest sectoral decrease.
Despite the strength of the labour market, the European Commission’s Economic Forecast for Ireland, also published in November, suggests Ireland’s GDP will have declined by 0.5 per cent by the end of 2024. It attributes that to a contraction in the multinational sector in the first half of the year.
A survey from e-recruitment platform IrishJobs.ie shows domestically traded sectors currently outperforming internationally traded ones. The survey reveals a “cautious hiring market, with job growth continuing to moderate” after the hiring surge of recent years.
Its data indicates the number of new job vacancies in Q3 decreased by 13 per cent year on year, with sectors associated with the domestic economy – including property, retail, arts and entertainment, and travel – tending to outperform internationally traded ones.
In a year in which half the world went to the polls, and concerns mounted about the fate of both Ukraine and Gaza, geopolitical uncertainty was a factor in this.
“People were waiting for the outcome of elections, particularly in risk-averse sectors such as financial services and legal, which were holding off on decision making,” says Claire Kelly, head of growth and partnerships at Sigmar Recruitment.
Once the Trump administration beds down, businesses in Ireland will be watching out for the potential implications for foreign direct investment here, she says, including tariffs or other tax policy changes, pressure to increase internal rather than overseas investment, or regulatory changes, including in relation to data protection, all of which could have an impact on recruitment here.
So too will the lessons some employers learned during the peak employee’s market years of 2022 and 2023.
Too many found themselves in the unfortunate position of having hired the wrong person, only to have them leave – or, worse, stay. In a more balanced market, expect employers to be much more rigorous at recruitment stage.
Next year will see selection processes take longer, with more thorough reference checking and psychometric testing carried out, suggests Caroline Jackson, chief executive of Jacksonstone Recruitment.
Candidate management will get a little easier too. “In 2023 recruitment agencies were finding candidate management very hard because job seekers held all the cards and their demands were often over-elevated,” she explains.
“What happened was that the big companies were throwing money around in order to get the best people, and that was driving salaries up”.
Next year will see a cautious return to the market by many employers who pressed the pause button on recruitment in 2024, she predicts, with opportunities opening up once again.
What’s more, it will be easier than ever to change careers. That’s because, outside of highly regulated roles such as in healthcare, employers are more open to seeking out transferable – or transversal – skills than ever before.
Technology, which underwent a reduction in headcount after a splurge of recruitment during the pandemic, is also “regaining momentum”, says Paul McClatchie, founder of Engage People, which specialises in financial recruitment and search.
Another feature of the market is that employers are increasingly looking for hybrid talent. That means not just having specific skills in, say, finance, banking or legal, but people who also come with skills in technology, AI or data, and is to the benefit of younger candidates.
“If a graduate is coming out of a financial services qualification now, they are probably going to understand some of those data pieces more so than someone who graduated 10 years ago,” says McClatchie.
Indeed, demand for such candidates is so strong that “recently qualified accountants, fund accountants and insurance brokers will all typically be interviewing within days of getting in touch”, he adds.
