The Irish banking regulator, the Central Bank of Ireland, incurred recruitment costs of €2 million in the past 18 months with the hiring of hundreds of new bank staff as it targets a staffing increase of 20%.

However, despite spending nearly €2 million on a hiring drive in 2015, "recruitment remained a challenge," according to internal bank documents. Although the Central Bank has targeted a staffing increase of 20%(equating to 300 jobs over three years) bringing its total headcount to 1,829,  "resourcing remained a key focus and challenge," according to the Central Bank Commission, an internal oversight body.

Last week internal bank documents showed that Central Bank bosses are growing increasingly concerned at a rapid turnover of senior staff (some divisions having 20% turnover) along with high levels of internal churn. The annual staff turnover rate at the Central Bank has been almost 8% since 2013.

Approximately €1.1 million was spent on external recruitment (including head-hunting firms, executive search services, advertising and candidate and relocation expenses) and €800,000 was due to internal management costs. Recruitment agency placement fees comprised over half of the €1.1m external spend (€660,000).

 Costs included:

€165,000 assessment tools,

€132,000 executive search support services

€77,000 advertising

€66,000 candidates’ expenses including relocation expenses, such as economy class flights.

"This cost includes all screening and shortlisting activity, interviewing and the cost of the internal resourcing team who are responsible for the end-to-end recruitment process," commented a bank spokeswoman. She went on to say, "Costs are based on average salaries and the filling for just under 600 roles including all external competitions and all internal promotional and transfer competitions…Specific recruitment tools, such as agency placement fees and executive search, are essential in order to hire high-calibre senior executives in an increasingly competitive employment market."