All About Business is proud to support and promote the re-employment initiative, Hireland.

This is an initiative from people who own and work for Irish businesses, it aims to help kick-start a burst of jobs in Ireland.

It is a totally voluntary campaign which started out around a kitchen table last February, when a group of people got together and decided now was the right time to do something about the soaring numbers with unemployment. The project was set up by people who own and work for Irish businesses, with no lobbies or government affiliation – this group of people wanted to do something themselves rather than wait for something to happen.

The aim is for Irish businesses to pledge to a job, and hire a new employee to help combat the high unemployment rate and take a positive step to help recovery. There will also be no commercial gain and no profiling of the individuals or their companies.

In the space of just one week, Hireland has hit 1,500 job pledges from SME’s right across the country and the numbers are growing by the day.

Bank of Ireland & allaboutbusiness.ie are proud to show their support for Hireland

To find out more information, click here to be brought to Hireland’s website

The Small Firms Association (SFA) has today released the findings of its Summer Small Business Survey. According to Patricia Callan, SFA Director, “the overall survey results show a continuing improvement in the sentiment of small business owner-managers; however many remain under serious pressure.”

 
A total of 592 companies responded to the survey, and the regionally representative sample was drawn from a variety of sectors, including manufacturing, retail distribution, and services. Regarding jobs, the survey indicated that 23% of respondents expect to recruit temporary staff in the next three months and 15% expect to recruit permanent staff in the same time frame. According to Callan, this is the first time since 2009 that more companies have indicated they would employ staff in the next three months than let staff go.

On an even more positive note, the proportion of respondents implementing lay-offs and short-term working arrangements now stand at their lowest levels since the survey began in 2009. Callan added that “The Government’s Jobs Initiative and in particular the halving of the lower rate of employer’s PRSI has been well received by small businesses and they are now responding with real job creation. The Government must continue to improve the competitive environment in which small businesses operate, cutting costs wherever it can. This is the only way to solve the jobs crisis”.

When questioned about Business Sentiment in general, companies’ views of the overall business environment improved slightly since the first quarter of 2011 and improved significantly on the same period in 2010. However, the survey did find that confidence amongst companies in the manufacturing and distribution sectors was significantly weaker.

Has the lower rate of PRSI had an impact on your business? Let us know in the comment box below!

The IE Domain Registry (IEDR), launched a new e-commerce website development fund aimed at Irish SMEs. The fund, called OPTIMISE, is worth €100,000 in total and aims to allow small to medium businesses to realise their online potential.

The OPTIMISE fund will enable ten Irish small and medium business owners to begin the process of transforming their existing online presence into a fully featured, transactional website custom-designed for their business’ needs.

The ten recipients will each receive €10,000 worth of professional technical and marketing support with which to plan and carry out a major e-commerce website upgrade. The upgrade will enable the ten successful SMEs to sell goods and services 24/7 to a global marketplace online.

The fund is open to applications from any organisation classified as an SME or micro-enterprise, which has an existing website that is accessible to the public and registered with a .ie domain name. Further details and online application forms are available here. The closing date for receipt of entries is Friday, 3rd June 2011.

The fund was established after research conducted by the IEDR last November showed that Irish companies remain slow to harness the potential of the Internet. The key findings of the report showed that only 66% of Irish businesses had any kind of website by 2009, compared with 40% in 2000. Of those 66%, only 21% had e-commerce functionality on their website, a marginal increase of just 3% since 2000.

Commenting on the launch, Mr. David Curtin, Chief Executive of the IE Domain Registry, said “Our research shows that the next growth phase of the Internet in Ireland depends on the SME community here and their willingness to embrace new technologies to build better, fully featured e-commerce websites.

Too many Irish SMEs are still reluctant to make that transition. We know that great websites attract people online and encourage them to spend more time consuming advertising, products and services. Until such times as SMEs in Ireland grasp this, they continue to lose competitive advantage by missing out on lucrative sales opportunities online.”

We want to know you think of this fund! Would it be something that you would be interested in applying for and how would in make a difference to your business? Leave a comment below!

Allaboutbusiness.ie would like to congratulate First Derivatives plc who has been nominated as an ‘International Finalist’ in the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year.

Donal Keane, Senior Financial Engineer at First Derivatives spoke to allaboutbusiness.ie recently, as part of the Bank of Ireland ‘National Enterprise Week’ initiative. You can watch his video here. …