20 FEATURE
Working to live A recruitment crisis compounded by an accommodation crisis is afoot. Staff demand higher wages in order to afford their accommodation and some recruitment firms are going so far as to source accommodation for candidates in order to close the deal. Fionnuala Carolan speaks to leading recruiters in the industry about the state of play A colleague, who was renting a room in their house, recently received an email from a recruiter looking to secure the room for a staff member of a well-known Dublin food store. It struck them as unusual as they have been renting a room in their house for years and have never come across this before. It made us wonder - is this something the recruitment agencies and retail groups are being forced to do to try to secure talent in today’s market? It makes sense when you think about it. Staff need accommodation close to their jobs and if they can’t find this, they can’t accept the job. So the recruiters need to work harder and smarter when filling a role, going above and beyond their traditional duties. It’s a well-known fact that there is a worrying lack of accommodation available to rent or buy around the country. The property website Daft.ie revealed in its latest quarterly rental report that there were just 1,460 homes available to rent across the country at the start of November 2021, the lowest amount since the company began tracking availability in 2006. In Dublin, there were only 820 properties available for rent, a fall of 51% on the same date last year leading rental prices in Dublin to increase by 2.7% on a year-on-year basis. In Cork there was a year-on year jump of 6.9%, 8.3% in Galway, 8.9% in Limerick and 10% in Waterford. Dublin is now the sixth most expensive capital city in the world for renters, according to another new report by UK insurance group CIA Landlord that looked at the average cost
ShelfLife February 2022 | www.shelflife.ie
of renting one-bed apartments in 38 capital cities across the globe. It states that the average rent in Central Dublin is €2,016 per month. Unsustainable for most on modest retail wages you would imagine. When an accommodation crisis occurs, wages must rise to facilitate this. Already Dunnes has announced a 10% pay rise for its employees and Lidl earlier this month announced a €10 million investment in pay increases for its workforce of 6,100 from 1 March. ShelfLife has learned that drivers and temporary staff have seen wages rise from €14/15 an hour up to €27 - €30 an hour because of the boom in e-commerce during the pandemic. This should be good news for staff but the fact that inflation is soaring means than any extra gains in a wage package are completely wiped out when rising accommodation and
Barry Whelan, managing director of Excel Recruitment, says “the generous wages paid in Ireland are eroded by the cost of accommodation”
food prices are considered. From an employer’s perspective, it also means that if
unemployment payment is keeping a cohort of
wages go up, it’s very hard for them to come
staff out of the workplace. Secondly, the
down again and so the prices of goods need
migrant labour force went home during the
to rise to cover this making it a vicious cycle.
pandemic and has not returned en masse.
We spoke to two of Ireland’s leading
Thirdly, retail employees have re-evaluated
recruiters in retail and hospitality to try to
their work requirement and are focused on
understand how we arrived at this point.
moving to less customer-facing roles with
Staff crisis Barry Whelan, MD of Excel recruitment says there are four main reasons for the staff crisis
more favourable hours. And finally, retail employees are being sought by alternative industries due to the overall staff crisis.” Whelan also spoke of how the industry
in retail, including the pandemic
hasn’t moved on from a career perspective
unemployment payment (PUP) and the loss of
including the fact that there have been no
non-Irish workers. “Firstly, the pandemic
changes in the law to allow for foreign
