Is Now a Good Time to Hire?

I think in a turbulent economic climate with so many unknowns, the knee-jerk reaction is to avoid unnecessary costs and for many businesses it’s about doing everything possible to cut costs and regrettably often staff redundancies being inevitable.. All you have to do is open the Irish Examiner every morning to read about job losses.

Overnight, the industry was changed. Recruitment agencies quickly had to adapt and adjust to a new norm – business that might have been easy to come by was no longer, and contractors who were in ‘solid assignments’ stopped working. Already, some agencies have closed their doors. More will follow. International firms will leave the Irish market, we have already seen some high profile departures in Cork City.

So, what does it all mean for recruitment agencies and the industry?

Well in all honesty we don’t know what the future holds, so important we use the factors that we do know to make an informed decision.

Even since starting with CSA back in 2016, attracting the best talent has become increasingly competitive year on year, which is evidenced by such a high employment rate and high living costs.  

I remember giving presentations last year making the point of Ireland having the lowest unemployment rate in years at 4.7% and making projections that :

“Finding and retaining labour could prove to be the big challenge of 2020”

With such few vacancies being advertised and the rate of unemployment , which many experts think will result in a huge number of redundancies, could the candidate driven market which has been in place for 10 years be coming to an end?

Be under no illusions, the market is candidate long, job short !

Having recently successfully completed a ‘head hunting’ search for a senior position on behalf of one of our clients, we found that currently employed candidates were understandably reluctant to entertain moving. Having said that we sourced an incredibly strong pool of candidates that many had recently been notified of redundancy, which has very much been the trend.

Anyone that knows me will know I’m a very positive person and try to focus only on things that I can control. With over 53 years trading we have supported our Clients and Candidates through the financial storms before and are now helping our Clients and Candidates through the Covid-19 pandemic, by finding new platforms to help people connect and build relationships for the future !

In Summary

Recruitment is a wonderful barometer of really what is happening out there, so ignore the media and speak with the best consultant you know! We can tell you that while many companies have found it exceptionally difficult in this Covid-19 era; there are a considerable number of companies who have never had it so good. Many businesses are talking to us already of their plans once they are through the next few months and there is ambition and energy there, so we all should feel good about that.

 I hope the above has been useful, but as you can appreciate there are so many variables so if you do need any bespoke advice, I am always happy to meet (virtually via Zoom) for a complimentary session.

One more thing, I strongly encourage people to support local across all sectors ! Thank you !! 💙💛