September is always a ‘Boom Month’ in the recruitment volume. This one is no exception. Recession or not, jobs are still here. All the industry is still here, there are jobs to be done. Ok, construction might not be here as it was, but more or less, all the other industries are still booming in Ireland. Dell closed the Limerick plant, but IT didn’t really die here. Low paid manufacturing aspect of IT did, but instead we got Google hiring like maniacs! Literally.
It’s not that we did not work hard during the boom, but there are some of us that simply didn’t have to work hard at all. There was just so much work to choose from. Clients cuing for almost any type of service you could provide. Just remember, up until not long ago we used to cue for a taxi. Today taxis are cuing up, waiting in the line for a customer. And when they do get a customer, they work on retention. They give you their number, with the special discount codes and rates. They will do everything to make sure next time you need a taxi, you ring them as oppose stopping a next free one on the street. Taxi drivers are fighting for their market share today. They acquire you, and work on retention of their customers. Well we all need to learn from our taxi drivers.
There are jobs everywhere and in every industry right now. Crisis of the economy – Yes. Recession – Yes. Downturn – some will say yes, but I am not sure we are actually going ‘Down’ any more. Not for some time now. But jobs are still here.
It is harder to get a job today
Not only that far more effort is needed to get a job today, but it will also be harder to keep it. Simply more of you will be required from your employer. Harder work, and more hours. You will simply have to ‘produce’ more – since our salaries are still quite high compared to most of the Europe. If you are a taxi driver, you will have to put in more hours. If your job does not let you put in more hours since your shift ends, you will most likely have to work faster, and more efficiently. Regardless of what you do, you are very likely to have to work harder to keep your job.
Some will fail. Some will decide they do not want to work harder. Some will find out it simply does not pay to do it. Voluntary redundancies have been offered in most of companies since the recession started. Layoffs done quietly with a small numbers or staff or on a grands scales with the whole factories being closed and hundreds of workers ending up on the street became normal news. It is tough to stand all this bad news. We have more suicides today in Ireland than we ever had. One and a half every day on average. Times are tough. But jobs are still here. Make sure you like yours, since you will spend more time doing it from now onwards.
Sounds kind of like Germans? Perhaps, but nowadays that is required of us. If we want to keep living as we used to, and if we want this country to be the one we are proud of – we will have to work for it, and work hard for it.