Given the continuing bad news about Irish job losses, you would have thought that recruiters in the Republic would be inundated with applicants. Apparently not.

Recruiters tell us there are numerous areas in which they are struggling to find candidates right now. These include:

1. Loan workout and restructuring

As Irish banks work through the loans they made before the crisis, people who can “help clients to work out how to repay loans” are still in big demand, says Ken Harbourne, of Wallace Myers International.

“We all know the banks over-extended themselves which resulted in the country being in a bad place; some loans we’re defaulted on and many are with NAMA,” Harbourne adds.

2. Compliance and Risk

Eimear Walsh of Brightwater Recruitment says: “We are currently finding there is a high demand for candidates who are skilled in the areas of compliance, risk and regulation across all financial services sectors, banking, insurance and funds. Companies operating in this sector are looking to increase their team size and experience levels as a result from tighter regulation from the central bank”.

Walsh says consultancy firms are also looking for compliance specialists to join their advisory teams. Salaries are competitive as companies pay existing staff well to prevent them from being poached.

Paul Smyth, of FK International says there’s an ongoing shortage of risk staff  to work in Quantitative Analytics roles.  “There wasn’t historically any employment in this area, that’s why it’s a struggle now,” he says.

3. Accountancy

“There is a lot of contract work available for Newly Qualified Accountants with 1-2 years post-qualification industry experience”, says Harbourne: “Most people in this area are in permanent work, and therefore aren’t available”

Harbourne adds, “Accountancy firms in general have a number of permanent roles in audit, tax and insolvency. Everyone cut back deeply from 2008 onwards. Firms didn’t hire many grads and are struggling now to stay on top of the increased workload.”

4. Fund Administration

Here, as in compliance and risk, “there is a reluctance to move, by people in full-time, fairly secure jobs,” says Smyth. Candidates have been put off by the volatility of recent years.

5. Specialist Human Resources

This includes, for example, compensation and benefits professionals. “Financial services organisations are all reviewing this at the moment. They are trying to balance costs and staff retention” says Harbourne

6. Multilingual Staff

Finally, there is a big shortage of highly skilled German workers over quite a broad area of financial services positions. These include client services, accounting and insurance, says Harbourne