An employment initiative set up last month has received more than 2,500 promises of jobs from businesses around the country.
The Hireland plan aims to stimulate the creation of 5,000 jobs in the first half of this year by encouraging small and medium-sized firms to pledge jobs on the hireland.ie website.
The job pledges have come from 589 companies across sectors such as software design, engineering, pharmaceuticals, sales, marketing, retail, hotel, hospitality and sports and leisure.
Of the 2,500 promises, 150 have translated into jobs in companies such as Ely Winebar, Hauste Group, Spirit Motor Group, Red Tree Consulting, Byrne Curtin Kelly and Murex Advanced Technologies.
Hireland co-founder Lucy Masterson said all job pledges would be monitored to ensure that they were not empty promises and that the roles were actually filled.
“It’s about a positive, confident movement, where one job will lead to another if Irish businesses get on board,” she said.
On average, companies have pledged between one and five jobs. The vast majority of job promises came from companies in Dublin (1,882) followed by Galway and Kildare.
The idea for Hireland, a volunteer, not-for-profit group came about after a kitchen table conversation between a group of friends, who had seen other friends emigrate.
Since then, students and people from the business, marketing and media community have become involved, giving their time and skills for free.
The media industry has provided €500,000 in advertising to support the launch of the initiative.
Ms Masterson said the idea had generated immense goodwill. “We started this initiative to help generate positivity amidst the doom and gloom and there is no better way to beat the doom and gloom than by helping to put people in jobs.”
