Companies in Galway have promised to create 105 jobs — the highest number of jobs pledged in the country outside Dublin — under the recently launched Hireland initiative.
Hireland announced this week that, just over one month after the job creation initiative was launched, more than 2,500 jobs have been pledged around the country, and 150 people have already starting working in promised new posts. The campaign initially aimed to encourage companies to pledge 5,000 new jobs within six months.
Launched just over one month ago, Hireland this week confirmed that the initiative has already received over 2,500 job pledges from businesses all over the country. This is all the more impressive as Hireland had set a six month target of 5,000 pledges and is now at the halfway point after little more than a month.
As of today, 589 companies have pledged jobs across a wide range of sectors from software design and development to engineering and pharmaceuticals to sales, marketing,retail, hotel, hospitality and sports leisure.
Furthermore, there has been a swift translation from pledges to jobs with 150 having commenced jobs already that were pledged on Hireland.ie These jobs are in a variety of companies in Ireland including; ely Winebar, Hauste Group, Spirit Motor Group, Red Tree Consulting, Byrne Curtin Kelly and Murex Advanced Technologies.
Speaking after her appearance in RTE’s The Frontline this week, Lucy Masterson, co-founder of Hireland commented, “We cannot get over the immense goodwill and positivity that Hireland is generating! We are barely one month in and we have already passed the halfway point in terms of pledges. 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. Over 150 people have already started in new jobs. This is a really encouraging sign and one that we hope will continue.”
By recruiting more people into the business, a company will experience immediate and direct benefits. It lets customers know they can expect a better service, staff will be rewarded with a greater division of labour and enhanced output and it also sends a strong message to competitors by investing in the business.
Hireland is a volunteer, not-for-profit group that has developed a national communications initiative to encourage employers to hire one of the thousands of skilled people who are currently out of work. It came about in February 2011 after a kitchen table conversation bya group of friends, who had lost other friends to emigration. Since then, it has grown to include students, and people from the business, marketing and media community, all of whom have given their time and skills for free simply because they want to see the creation of jobs for the thousands of unemployed skilled workers in Ireland.
Hireland wants to draw on the power of the collective and act as a catalyst to stimulate job creation. It’s about a positive, confident movement, where one job will lead to another if Irish businesses get on board and pledge a job.
Ireland’s media industry has played a big part in supporting Hireland and has given €500,000 in advertising to support the launch of the initiative. Hireland’s campaign includes newspaper, television, radio and outdoor advertising, as well as digital and PR activity.
Even though Hireland only officially launched last month, it has already inspired a sister initiative in the United States of America, UhireU.S. which was announced at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York in September 2011.
A sure way of future proofing a business is to hire more people, so business owners are asked to log on to www.hireland.ie and pledge a job today.
