Job concerns push up Irish stress levels

Listen carefully outside Dublin's International Financial Services Centre, and you might be able to hear the sound of 25,000 stress balls being frantically pumped. Obviously, most people are anxious about their job security at the moment, but they're fretting the most in Ireland.

A rather astounding 95% of Irish finance workers surveyed by recruiters Robert Half are worried about increased stress levels over the next six months. It polled accounting and finance professionals in 20 different countries and, it seems, the Irish are the most stressed.

With your job on shaky ground, you would have thought a few extra hours in the office would help your cause a little, but morale is low, stress is high and therefore around half of firms surveyed (47%) have noticed staff taking an increased number of sick days.

Ken Harbourne, country manager for Robert Half in Ireland, says that uncertainty over possible redundancy is the main contributor to the increased anxiety.

"The rumour mill in any company increases people's concern, for the most part unnecessarily so," he says.

Well, accountants in Big Four firms in Ireland have more reasons to be looking over their shoulders than most, and although the main banks have so-far held off making wide-spread redundancies the feeling is that some cuts are inevitable this year if things don't pick up soon.

Harbourne is convinced this isn't a widespread phenomenon yet though: "Nearly three quarters in the survey said that they are not planning to make any changes to their team in the next six months and only a small minority are looking to reduce their teams. Also almost half believe that despite the current economy that there is still a shortage of skilled finance and accounting professionals available."