By Business & Finance 
Morgan McKinley Ireland Employment Monitor shows growth in professional job markets
The number of professional job vacancies available in June 2018 increased by 3.11% nationally since May according to the Morgan McKinley Ireland Employment Monitor. Overall, the availability of professional jobs increased by 12.3% in June 2018 compared to the same month a year ago.
There was a reduction of 3.7% in the number of professionals seeking new roles in June compared to the previous month. The employment monitor also recorded a decrease of 14.4% in the number of professionals actively seeking new job opportunities in June 2018, compared to June 2017. This reflects current economic conditions and the fact that Ireland’s unemployment rate has fallen to a new low of 5.1%.
Morgan McKinley Ireland, Global FDI Director, Tracy Keevans commented:
Despite the expected seasonal slowdown, the professional recruitment market remained comparatively strong in June. We’re seeing consistent growth in the professional jobs market in equal measure across both the domestic and multinational sectors, which is in line with recently released IDA Ireland figures for the first half of 2018. There were notable developments across Finance, Data Analytics and Cybersecurity with attention from multinationals and FDI companies increasingly focused on larger centres outside Dublin, with Cork, Galway, Limerick and Sligo already acting as growth focal points.
Data specialists, data analysts and data protection professionals most sought after roles
She continued: “The sectors hiring in the greatest numbers for the month of June included Healthcare, Telecommunications and Medical Devices. Data Analysts remained at the forefront of IT recruitment for June. There has been specific interest in specialists with exposure to Big Data frameworks such as Spark and Hadoop. From a skills perspective, hiring managers are looking for data specialists who are confident in liaising with business stakeholders in order to ensure that data is utilised effectively.”
“There was a spike in demand for data protection professionals across the market in response to GDPR. In an effort to align with regulatory standards, businesses have acted swiftly in bolstering their data protection function so that personal data is managed and protected accordingly. From an IT perspective, we have seen heightened hiring activity of security specialists in particular. There has also been an increase in the hiring of administrative professionals, solely for the purpose of coordinating GDPR related tasks and queries. Their duties include processing subject access requests, responding to data breach notifications, documenting such notifications, and other similar coordination responsibilities.”
With the unemployment rate at the lowest it’s been in 15 years, the challenge for the economy is to create enduring stability even with ever-increasing pressure on infrastructure, housing and resources to ensure Ireland maintains its attraction for global professionals.
