Irish animation production company Kavaleer Animations has announced plans to create 30 new jobs in 2012.

The company, which has worked with Sesame Street, Disney and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, has just celebrated 10 years in business.

Kavaleer has twice been nominated for an Irish Film and Television Award and once for a British Animation Award, while it has won four Digital Media Awards. Its film work has been selected by over 100 international festivals over the past 10 years.

In 2012, the company will be co-producing a pre-school series consisting of 52 11-minute programmes. It also intends to extend its interactive games and e-learning production to a €1m turnover by April.

Kavaleer said it also has big plans for the world of apps and digital games. It has already produced artwork for Playfirst game ‘Diner Dash’, which is played world-wide and available as an app for iPhone, iPad and PC.

“It’s amazing to think that what started out in 1998 as a hobby has developed into something this big over the past decade,” said CEO and founder Andrew Kavanagh. “Ten years ago, we got our first commission and took a risk by starting a business in the midst of a recession.”

The standardised unemployment rate in October was 12.5%.The drop in unemployment comes after 30 consecutive months of increases. The total Live Register figure for the October was 412,407, a drop of 7,447 on the previous month, but an increase of 161,727 year-on-year.

This is the first positive piece of news about Jobs in Ireland. It needs to be taken with the caution and understanding of the overall picture.

The Live register figures show 67,207 job losses year to date. Therefore we are far from what the news here and abroad are saying – that we are coming out of the recession. The reality is that we are at the bottom. And also – we will be happy if this really is the bottom. If this is not just a single month where unemployment growth paused for a month.

The following unemployment graph puts us well into the perspective – a reality check of the status of the economy.

The calendar quarter estimates for Q2 2009 (adjusted for seasonality) are:

Within the space of a month we had more recruitment industry activity than ever before in Ireland. Irish National Recruitment Federation had its Annual conference, and you can read about it on Jobs Blog. Microsoft organised the Recruitment Conference and a Tuesday Club, and both those are reviewed on the same site.

2 out of 3 recruiters in Ireland have lost their jobs since the recession started. Only the bare bones of the recruitment industry actually still exists.

Smart economists use recruitment figures as a barometer of the economy. What has been happening in the last 9 months is that about 1% of the workforce is made redundant and does not find the new job, hence goes on the dole.

The current predictions of the unemployment we are going to have in Ireland vary from 14% to 17%. The current trend puts us steady on 12% sometime next week. 15% in September and 17% at the end of the year. So we should reach that worst case predictions before the end of 2009.

In the same time there is no one predicting any recovery to start happening in January 2010. In the same time we expect the unemployment to miraculously stop growing. The reality is that all the signs are that the unemployment growth rate is steady. The last 9 months more or less each decreased the workforce for 1%. All the signs today show that the same is to continue for at least the end of the year. We might enter 2010 with one in five unemployment rate.

In the same time there are thousands of jobs in Ireland. Literally. And recruiters are finding it hard to fill those jobs. Employers are expecting the highest quality candidates ever. The number of skills are still in extreme shortage in Ireland. In fact Google announced recently that they are pulling about 1000 jobs out of their Irish operation centre, simply because they have not been able to find people with skills they are looking for here.

If you are looking for a job today, get ready and get organised.
It is not going to be easy and it’s not going to be quick to get another job for the most. Prepare mentally for the wage drop. In the similar level to the house price drop, or even more in some industries.

Get your CV ready, go and look at the jobs available, and do not only send you CV to the employers, but do call them, talk to them and present yourself in your best. Remember – there really are thousands of jobs available today in Ireland!

Social Networking sites like LinkedIN, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Bebo, and others started dominating the use of the Internet worldwide. Even the search engines themselves are attracting less and less visitors every month this year. Social Media is what it is all about now.

The Irish Recruitment sector has coped on and the first Irish Social Networking site Jobs Market is rapidly growing in popularity. The Irish Job boards have no answer to a free service offered to everyone from Jobs Market web site. Some job sites have opened up and are offering free advertising to all employers, to try slowing down of the candidates leaving to the social media sites.

Jobs Market is a free web site where both Candidates and Employers can publish. Candidates publish their Profiles and even blogs, and Employers publish their Jobs and company profiles and again blog posts. Anyone can connect to anyone, and candidates can decide if to accept the offers to connect from the Employers.

A free site Jobs Market is best positioned to help Irish recession and get the available workforce in contact with the right employers.

Ulster Bank Group is to absorb the business of First Active, formerly the First National Building Society, with the loss of 750 jobs. 550 jobs are to go at its operations in the Republic and a further 200 in Northern Ireland.

In 2003 First Active was acquired by Ulster Bank Limited, part of The Royal Bank of Scotland Group.

The redundancies are part of a move by Ulster Bank Group to merge its specialist mortgage and investment arm, First Active, with Ulster Bank.

Following the merger, the First Active brand will disappear and all First Active customers will be automatically transferred to Ulster Bank.

Ulster Bank Group, a subsidiary of Royal Bank of Scotland, employs 7,000 people in both the Republic and in Northern Ireland.

First Active has 60 branches in Dublin and the larger towns and cities, employing more than 400 people.

There is also a nationwide network of Ulster Bank branches, which was a good idea in the boom when lenders aggressively sought to build their loan books, but it is of little value in a recession.

All 60 First Active branches will be closed.

In locations where there is both a First Active branch and an Ulster Bank branch, one of the branches will be closed and the other will be branded Ulster Bank. In 15 First Active branches (in locations where there is no Ulster Bank already nearby), the branch will be converted to an Ulster Bank.

With all the focus on the large MNC’s we sometimes forget about the smaller fish – the SME’s. These companies make up a great part of the employment figures in Ireland thus combined play an important role in the employment landscape in Ireland. Worryingly 40% of SME’s have cut staff in the last 3 months with only 15% indicating that they employed new staff. This survey which talked to 400 companies highlights the difficult trading conditions for SME firms. So were are the big casualties – Construction Sector related companies, followed by Distribution Sector related companies and then Manufacturing Sector related companies.

This bad news though is not confined to Ireland as reports suggest that the dreaded “R” word is evident in 3 other regions across Europe – Italy, France and Germany.

There was some positive jobs news for Athlone, Co Westmeath with the announcement that ABIOMED will create 250 new jobs in the region. ABIOMED is a US medical technology manufacturer specialising in cardiac technology. These new Irish operations will manufacture a new line of products for the American market and create a source a high skilled job opportunities for the region.

This news was somewhat overshadowed with DETE figures released indication our worst fears. The Irish jobs market is in freefall. 20,392 people have lost their jobs in 2008 with as much as 20% of this figure in July alone. Reports indicate that the major cities like Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway and Waterford have been hardest hit with other counties Louth and Monaghan with significant job losses.

As far as gender job loss is concerned the male population is taking a harder hit which is no surprise really considering the decline of the construction sector. 13,861 men lost their jobs during this period and 6,531 women lost their jobs.

First we had manufacturing with many large multinationals leaving the shores for cheaper costs around the globe. Then we had the bottom fall from the building sector with thousands of job losses. Throw in financial services, insurance, retail and things are getting bad. But now even the motor industry is taking a hit. I guess it is no surprise that the luxury car sector would be hit in the current climate but it is bad news all the same. Maxwell motors has announced 30 plus job redundancies with the decision not to renew the BWM franchise for Ireland and Orwell Motors has gone out of business.

If we look at the bigger picture of the jobs market in Ireland – July saw unemployment rise to its highest level in a decade. The claimant count has increased by 63,600 in the last 12 months which is incredible. Unemployment is now at 5.9% which is an increase from 5.6% in June.

Jobsnews bringing you all the latest Irish Jobs News.

Affected by redundancy or need help in the job market perhaps a career coach can help with expert CV Writing Services and Interview Coaching in Ireland.

Following the recent Hibernian announcement there has been another hammer blow for the Insurance Sector with the announcement that AXA Insurance will let 120 jobs go in Dublin. Although these will be voluntary it is still bad news for the sector. This news does not shock many in the sector as they have been aware of plummeting turnover for the company in the last 3 years. Some estimates say that this has been up to 40%.

AXA has also announced that it plans to restructure its internal pay scheme. It is recognised that AXA has been one of the better payers in the sector but this will mean those staying with the company who may have to take a pay reduction.

I also noted in the Indo that the North is not escaping job loss. A County Down based company ToughGlass has announced 60 compulsory redundancies. This will mean that over half of the workforce will be made redundant. Trading conditions have been put forward as the reason for staff reduction with a sharp fall in demand for product.

JOBSNEWS bringing you all the latest Irish Jobs News. You will find all the latest jobs news including job creation (well actually not many of these at the minute) and redundancies in Ireland.

A real blow to the Irish Jobs market with the announcement that 580 jobs will go at Hibernian. The back office and support services jobs will be lost to India. Although the company tried to put a positive spin on the news it is a serious blow to financial services sector. It was announce that there will be no forced redundancies and jobs will be phased out through natural attrition. Hibernian employs 2200 staff in Ireland so this move will represent over 25% of the workforce.

The other news announcement today was that we are officially in recession – shocker. What is it with newspapers telling us what we have know for about a year. I guess there is alot of doom and gloom. My advice as usual don’t buy newspspers or listen to the radio (or read this blog).

Is it me or has there been little job news in Ireland over the last few week – positive or negative. Ok – there will always be redundancies and new job creation BUT have we reached equilibrium in Ireland. I noted over the weekend that there have been some positive noises coming from the US. Some experts believe that the worst may be over. Hopefully so but I am a bit skeptical about all of these so called experts.

If there has been any jobs news that I have missed please feel free to post them below.

Jobsnews keeping you informed about all the jobs news in Ireland.

Obesity is Ireland? You must be kidding!!

Pizza giants Domino’s hope to open 7 new Irish stores this year which will create 225 new jobs. These expansion plans were announced yesterday of the back of 33% increases in pre-tax profits.

Currently Domino’s has 501 stores across UK and Ireland. 12 of these stores are in Northern Ireland. 3 new stores were added to Republic of Ireland last year to make it 34 in total.

Looks like we are going to eat ourselves out of a recession.

Are pizza’s a way to stay healthy?