Are Irish businesses ready, willing and able to hire? To help develop Hireland’s campaign, Amárach Research recently surveyed SME owner managers and decision makers about their recruitment plans for 2012.…
The accountants have managed the recession and now marketers must manage the recovery. Amárach Research is supporting a new initiative by Irish people in business, marketing and the media to…
Are Irish businesses ready, willing and able to hire? To help develop Hireland’s campaign, Amárach Research recently surveyed SME owner managers and decision makers about their recruitment plans for 2012. The poll was conducted between 9th-12th January 2012. A total of 150 small and medium sized companies completed the survey. The companies surveyed currently employ an average of 36 staff.
The Key Findings
Slightly more than half (52%) of SMEs plan to hire one or more new employees this year; most of the rest (43%) are undecided about their recruitment plans.
Among those planning to hire in 2012, SMEs expect to employ an average of 4 new staff.
SMEs expect to recruit employees with varying levels of experience:
- one in five (22%) plan to hire school leavers
- two in five (42%) plan to hire graduates
- nearly half (45%) plan to hire people with less than 5 years experience
- nearly two in five (38%) plan to hire people with more than 5 years experience
- over one in three (35%) plan to hire people on the live register or unemployed.
Half of the planned new jobs will be mostly full time; 3 in 10 will be mostly part time and the balance will be a mixture of full time and part time jobs.
Asked to describe what business benefits SMEs expected from hiring new staff, most look forward to the potential for better customer service, while others expect to be able to grow their business through improved productivity.
Asked to describe the benefits to their staff from hiring new employees, most SMEs expect additional staff to take pressure of existing staff, freeing them up to focus on other things, as well as a general improvement in moral as they benefit from the energy and enthusiasm of new recruits.
Finally, among those planning to hire this year, 6 in 10 SMEs would be willing in principle to support an initiative like Hireland.ie, i.e.: to make a public pledge to hire at least one new staff member this year.
The message is clear: Ireland’s employers do see the need to hire more staff. It’ll be good for business, for customers and for colleagues. The potential for job creation – driven by real business needs – is huge. Hireland will do its part to kick start the process of recovery.
The accountants have managed the recession and now marketers must manage the recovery. Amárach Research is supporting a new initiative by Irish people in business, marketing and the media to boost job creation in 2012. It’s called Hireland.ie – and if you are an employer then now is your chance to do your bit to pledge a job (or more!) this year. 200 businesses have already – and so have we.
We like a good infographic here at Amárach, and one of the better ones in 2011 was The Right Vs Left Brain of Marketers. The real message – use both halves of your brain, it’ll double your chances of success in 2012!
Our latest research for MERC Partners is featured in today’s Irish Times. More than 400 executives at managing director, company director or head of function level were interviewed for the survey conducted by Amarach Research in October. It paints a positive picture as 2012 takes off.
More than 70 per cent of executives believe their career prospects in the past year have either improved (44 per cent) or stayed the same (27 per cent), with those in the technology and professional services sectors most optimistic.
The survey also found that the majority of respondents were open to switching roles, with 72 per cent prepared to move to another company.
So now we know – the Government’s plans for cuts and taxes in 2012 have been set out in all their gory details. But what does it mean for Ireland’s marketers? Prospects are mixed. A big positive is that after tax incomes will remain unchanged – so no nasty shocks for Irish consumers in their pay packets at the end of January 2012. Maybe even a ‘pleasant surprise’ as people realise they are not worse off in that regard.
A big negative will be in the vat increase and sundry other excise rises etc. So prices will go up, even if marketers leave them unchanged. But curiously, the ‘negative’ could be a positive. After several years of deflation, the time might be right for a targeted process of price increases for some brands/products/services and some customers. Though not blanket increases.
In 2012, Irish marketers will have to focus more than ever on the ‘Golden Trio’ of pricing strategy, segmentation strategy, and customer service strategy to ensure they benefit from the limited opportunities ahead.
And finally, the ‘better’ news is that nominal consumer spending will actually increase next year, as inflation offsets the decline in spending volumes. That’s according to the Government’s economic forecasts published yesterday to coincide with the Budget:
Amárach’s latest Economic Recovery Index for November is not encouraging. Although Irish consumers continue to display emotional resilience, their views on the economy are starting to affect their views about their own prospects…
New research by Amárach for RTE Frontline and the Irish Daily Mail was featured on last night’s show and in today’s paper. More details to follow – but you can see the results for yourself simply by popping down to your local newsagent!
The Government’s medium term outlook for the Irish economy doesn’t contain much by way of good news for marketers. We will enter the fifth year of contraction in the domestic economy – including consumer spending – next year. Things are then expected to flatten out in 2013, before starting a weak recovery from 2014.
All of which suggests that marketers will have to focus on market share, market segments and smart pricing to reach their targets over the next few years.
