Recruitment survey points to a surge of business optimism

ONE MORE THING:HAS BUSINESS IN Ireland turned a corner? A survey from Berkley Recruitment this week suggests this might be the case, with 77 per cent of Irish workers believing that business in their company is as good or better than last year.

That’s up on 71 per cent in 2011.

Ireland was bang in line with the global average for sentiment but ahead of Britain at 70 per cent, Switzerland at 69 per cent and Sweden at a lowly 50 per cent.

Berkley also found that 43 per cent of Irish staff expect to receive a pay rise of some sort, which seems high in the current climate. This compared with 39 per cent in 2011.

Berkley’s managing director Fergal Brosnan said sentiment in Ireland “seems to have turned a corner”.

Brave words, although the latest quarterly national household survey, published by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) this week, shows that employment rose by 0.6 per cent or by 10,000 people in the fourth quarter of 2011.

We’ve also had a raft of big jobs announcements from IDA Ireland recently.

“The last few years have seen plenty of false dawns but fingers crossed we are now through the very worst,” Brosnan declared.

The thousands who flocked to the RDS last weekend for an emigrant jobs fair don’t appear to share his optimism.