A FOUR-STAR hotel which reopened in Limerick this week under new management received 2,500 applications for 120 jobs.
The huge number of applications for jobs at the Carlton Castletroy Park Hotel came in the wake of major job losses in the midwest, where the loss of Dell’s manufacturing facility is having a knock-on effect on thousands of jobs in the region.
Such was the demand for jobs at the hotel that the positions advertised on the internet site jobs.ie had to be removed after 1,900 applications were received in a 48-hour period.
A further 200 CVs were dropped into the hotel after it was announced that it was to reopen under new management, while 312 people e-mailed their job applications directly to the new owners.
The hotel, which first opened 18 years ago, closed its doors two weeks ago after the previous operators went into liquidation blaming “insurmountable” trading conditions.
The premises, on the main Limerick to Dublin road, reopened on Wednesday under the new management of the Carlton Hotel Group.
Some 1,900 people are to be laid off at Dell’s manufacturing plant in the Raheen Industrial Estate, while 477 workers are also set to lose their jobs over the coming months at one of Dell’s main suppliers, RR Donnelly, which is located in the same industrial estate.
It is feared that the full impact of the fallout from Dell’s decision to move its manufacturing facility to Poland will amount to hundreds more job losses in the region.
The hotel’s general manager, Fiona O’Shea, who has been reappointed to the position, said the hotel has been “inundated” with job requests.
“It’s certainly a sign of the times all right. And many of us who were in the same boat when the hotel announced it was closing know what it’s like to be looking too,” she said.