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More professional jobs available - but wages offered are too low

Expectations of workers and employers vary and firms need to gauge what to offer candidates in high demand areas like tech and engineering.

THE NUMBER OF professional vacancies in Ireland has increased in the last month and is up almost 20% since this time last year.

According to the latest Morgan McKinley employment monitor, there was a rise of 4% in professional job vacancies in August. The number of professional seeking jobs was also up 9% on August last year, at 8,930.

The monitor pointed to an important factor in this vacancy increase – they are permanent jobs. Many are also situated in new divisions as companies expand.

“These growth plans by firms across all sectors hint at increased confidence in business growth for 2014 and into 2015,” commented Morgan McKinley’s Ireland Chief Operations Officer, Karen O’Flaherty. “We are seeing entire new divisions being formed and staffed by new teams and these expanded service offerings obviously bode well for the future.”

She said the growth in jobs has had a positive knock-on effect across many disciplines with support staff and those who deal in back office functions becoming further in demand.

Job seekers are finding it possible to gain employment in industries outside of their core disciplines with accountants finding that their skills are required in tech firms and tech professionals being needed in accounting firms.

Morgan McKinley Morgan McKinley

However, the monitor also found that there are often “significant differences” in salary expectations between jobseekers and employers, particularly in industries such as engineering.

“This hinders the hiring firm filling these roles, particularly since many job seekers are already in employment and in high demand,” explained O’Flaherty. “To take account of this, all firms looking to hire professionals would benefit from benchmarking salaries and benefits to gauge what candidates are looking for before offering jobs. Those who are failing to do this are the ones who are challenged in trying to source the right talent.”

Read: Irish employers not feeling so positive now: survey>

Read: Jobless figures down, though they’re still doling it out>

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