Recent surveys conducted by online jobs group SalesJobs.ie, revealed key findings for Ireland's hiring/firing and cost cutting plans for 2009 disclosed.
 
From the ground level, confidence remains high for 2009.

More than 3,000 companies were surveyed on their latest employment activities and plans for 2009. Company directors, senior managers and hr executives  representing a wide cross-section of industries and sizes responded to the survey carried out by SalesJobs.ie

Sales Directors Show Most Confidence in the Market

Overall 21% believe the economy will start to improve in 6-12 months

The majority 55% of respondents expect it to take longer in 1-2 years

20% giving it more 3-4 years to correct itself!

Sales Directors show the most faith in the recession lifting with 36% answering in under 6-12 months. Let’s hope they are right.

Recession Proof

No industry is recession proof according to 63% of respondents. But suggestions of funeral directors, liquidators, pizza parlours, and gambling business’s all seem a safe bet of suggested industries to be in.

Employment Plans

We asked what are their employment plans for the next 12 months?

5% have plans to let staff go

33% will replace staff that leave

28% plan non-replacement of staff that leave

The highest with 34% having plans to increase staff over the next 12 months.

Both the IT and sales industry sectors had the highest percentage of plans to increase staff over the next 12 months.

Redundancies – More to come

Over a quarter of respondents to the survey have already made staff redundancies in 2008. 86% of companies that have already made redundancies this year are planning more job cuts in the next 12 months.

The IT sector seems to be the least affected industry with 80% of those in the IT sector stating no redundancies in place to date.

Lessons From the 80’s

Lessons learnt from the last recession in the 1980’s seem to be holding firm, whereby companies that consistently advertised throughout the 80’s recession were seen to increase business by 30% once productivity returned to the market.

Advertising was highest on the list least likely to cut back spending on.

Good News For Marketing in 2009

It’s good news for marketing, historically known as the first industry to cut back on when budget cuts come in to play, but our respondents named Marketing as the category most likely to increase spend with in 2009 to increase profit opportunities.

Recruitment advertising in newsprint may take a further blow as 63% of companies surveyed have no plans to advertise in newsprint in 2009.

Niall Kelly, of SalesJobs.ie part of the Jobs Online Group which conducted the research, believes  “while the downturn has been coming throughout 2008 for larger companies, it has only really hit small /medium business's hard since October. I am confident SME's will be at the frontline when it comes to a lift in business confidence and see a perfect combination of lower interest rates, lower oil prices, better regulation of the financial sector and increased govt backed loans to mortgage holders, along with the ‘Obama bounce’ - that business activity will lift just as quickly in 2009.”

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