In terms of numbers, this week has blown every one that preceded it this year right out of the water on the jobs creation front.
We’ve had a spate of good weeks for job creation. At the start of June, more than 500 roles were announced in one week. Last week, there were even more revealed.
Even though June has been an unusually abundant month for job creation, no one could have anticipated the sheer number announced this week: 1,399 in total across the island of Ireland.
Things kicked off with the jaw-dropping news that Amazon is to create 1,000 jobs (primarily seeking engineers and security/data specialists for both Amazon and Amazon Web Services) in Ireland and has opened a new 170,000 sq ft building in Dublin 4. This revelation doubles the growth target the retail giant committed to in 2016.
Determined not to be eclipsed by the Bezos-led tech behemoth, Vodafone announced that it will take on 50 new sales employees at its European sales centre, Vodafone Red Edge, in Carrickmines in Co Dublin.
Data firm Trūata, which helps organisations conduct data analytics in full compliance with regulations such as GDPR, announced that is opening a headquarters in Dublin and hiring 75 staff.
Cybersecurity firm Forcepoint has selected Cork as the location of its new centre of excellence, creating 100 jobs in the ‘rebel county’ in the process.
In Belfast, New York-based homecare health software vendor HHA Exchange will open a new software development centre, creating 50 jobs.
Additionally, Eirtech Aviation Services revealed that it has established a new composite repairs centre in the Northern Irish capital and will take on 124 new hires to support this expansion.
As well as receiving this abundance of jobs news, we spoke to John Garrahan, who recently was taken on by customer service software platform Zendesk as an intern. He told us about how his experience has thankfully exceeded the expectation many prospective interns have that they will be relegated to fetching coffee and performing menial photocopying tasks.
We also caught up with Katarzyna Pluta, a senior associate QC specialising in bioanalytical sciences at Amgen, about making the move from Poland to Ireland, and what she most enjoys about Irish culture.
Updated, 12.12pm, 22 June 2018: This article was updated to clarify that we reported on 1,399 jobs announced this week, not 1,299.