This month did not bring as many jobs announcements as one might have liked, though it is hopefully just a blip on what has been an otherwise successful year thus far.
Last month, we dubbed the jobs round-up ‘No April showers to bring May flowers’ and this headline has, unfortunately, proved oddly prescient.
There were seven jobs announcements made across the entire month of May. These seven announcements represent a total of 490 jobs across the island of Ireland.
The jobs performance has generally been very strong in 2018, so in all likelihood this is a small blip on what will be a fruitful year.
One small bright side is that these announcements weren’t restricted to Dublin, as one might presume when numbers are flagging to this extent. In fact, announcements were nicely spread across Dublin, Cork and Belfast as well as more regional areas.
One of the largest announcements of the month came from off-site framing manufacturer Entekra, which is based in Co Monaghan. The company received an investment of $55m and with it announced the creation of 100 new jobs. While it comes within the context of a disappointing month, it’s always good to see more underserved areas get an economy boon through job creation.
In Belfast, Cork-headquartered tech firm Teamwork.com created 85 roles in a pre-emptive strike to ensure access to the UK market post-Brexit. It will be the company’s largest location outside of Cork and will serve as a development hub for new products the company has in the works.
Also in Belfast, Applied Systems announced early in May that it will add an additional £1.3m in salaries to the Northern Irish economy with the creation of 50 jobs for IT professionals.
NRG Awareness in Cork has also been able to increase its headcount, with about 70 new roles announced amid increasing demand for its patented energy products.
There was a total of 185 jobs announced in Dublin spread across three different announcements. The first, and largest, is Aptiv, a global technology company serving the automotive sector, which revealed that it will take on 100 employees in Dublin and bring its total staff in Ireland to 250.
The next one came from blockchain player ConsenSys, which revealed that it will establish a presence in Dublin by opening a new studio, employing 60.
Meanwhile, retail tech company Pointy will effectively double the headcount at its Dublin hub by bringing on 25 new employees.
Updated, 3:33 pm, 25 May 2018: This article was updated to correct figures given for the number of jobs created in May. There were 490 roles created (not 340) over seven announcements (not five). The two previously omitted announcements from Applied Systems and Aptiv have also been included.