A huge new retail shopping village at Rathdowney, Co Laois, is going to create lots of job opportunities for people who want to work in retailing.

So says Gerry Collins, managing director of the Calibre recruitment agency set up five years ago and based in Dawson Street, Dublin.

Mr Collins explains that they have various divisions, covering such areas as financial, retail and IT, recruiting at home and abroad. Internationally, it sources candidates from such countries as India and Latvia.

Much of its work in the Leinster region is in retailing, working with leading retail groups. Calibre says that it has one of the biggest retail recruitment divisions in Ireland. Jobs in retailing are at all levels, from shelf-stacking and customer service and deli counter assistant up to assistant manager and manager levels.

For many of the grades, says Mr Collins, it is still very difficult to recruit people locally in Ireland. "It's like London in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when it was impossible to recruit people for service-type jobs."

He says that in retailing here in Ireland, it's relatively straightforward to fill job vacancies at assistant manager level and higher, while below that level, it's difficult. It's not just the supermarket groups that are in constant need of staff. Fashion retailing and other forms of retailing are also huge business. A big, exciting opportunity for people who want to work in retailing is due to open soon in Co Laois.

It's a £30 million complex being developed at Rathdowney by Morrisons, a Scottish property group and it will have about 40 outlets selling out-of-season and end-of-line merchandise from leading brands at good discounts.

The centre will also have a restaurant and a play-centre for children, so that people will be able to come from a wide area of Leinster and beyond for a complete day out. It's also being targeted at the Dublin market, which is about 75 miles away.

The shopping village is due to open in about two months time, explains Mr Collins, and it will be offering lots of exciting job opportunities. Similar concepts have already proved very popular elsewhere in Europe and in the US, although it's a relatively new idea in Ireland.