Irish recruiter Excel is to add 100 new jobs as part of an expansion that will see €1.5 million invested in its office network.
The jobs will be filled over the coming 12 months, Excel said, with recruitment under way for in-house roles at five offices. The company has just opened a new 5000 sq ft office in Dublin city centre, with the recent opening of an office in Belfast further extending a network that also includes Cork, Naas and Galway.
Excel said it had seen “unprecedented demand” for its services, which includes permanent and temporary recruitment solutions for retail, hospitality, events, healthcare, industrial, engineering and the office support sectors.
“We have doubled our growth every year for the last three years, despite the challenges of Covid and, with this growth, we want to deliver an optimum workspace for our team, whilst investing significantly in Dublin city centre. Our commitment to hiring an additional 100 staff is driven by the demands we are experiencing for our services,” said Barry Whelan, founder and chief executive of Excel Recruitment.
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“By delivering instant temporary workforce solutions across a broad range of sectors, we are supporting our clients to enable them to deliver their business goals in a time of acute labour shortage. Our increased footprint in Dublin, along with our island-wide expansion, will give us the workplaces we require to deliver our unique service”.
The jobs market is still facing challenges, the company said.
“Covid’s legacy is still being forcefully felt by employers who cannot fill roles due to the mass exodus of overseas workers and Ireland’s younger labour force,” said Shane McLave, managing director at Excel.
“Another consequence of Covid is the increased numbers of employees who want to, and do, work from home – which has transformed the working environment for employers and employees alike and is not always possible to implement across all sectors.”
Mr McLave said no attention had been given by authorities to the issues surrounding stamp 2 visas allowing foreign students studying here to work. It is calling on the Government to introduce some flexibility around the conditions of the visa.
“This country is currently home to thousands of students from abroad, many of whom are eager to work. However, their stamp 2 visa model only allows them to work for 20 hours for seven months of the year and for 40 hours for just five months. These students could contribute in a big way to solving our staff shortages – if only our visa system facilitated this,” he said.
“What we have is a case whereby people are struggling to exist on the pay from a 20-hour working week, while employers throughout the country, particularly in the hospitality and retail sectors, are shouting out for workers. This is an immediate problem and, as it stands, the solution – ie, the work visa process – is cumbersome and slow and it’s essential that it changes.”
