Jobseekers in Ireland believe that the labour market is moving in their favour, according to a report from Cpl Recruitment.

The report, Cpl Employment Market Monitor 2017 Q4, asked both employers and jobseekers to rate whether the market is an employer’s one or jobseekers’ with the index showing that market is in favour of the jobseeker.

The Index also showed stability in the number of jobs posted in the following four sectors:  IT & Telecoms, Science, Engineering & Supply Chain, Sales & Marketing and Accountancy, Finance & Banking.

“The monitor highlights a largely stable trend in the final quarter of the year with only a small change in jobs as the market continues to remain positive, despite external factors such as Brexit and the political climate,” Ronan Lyons, Assistant Professor of Economics at Trinity College Dublin, said. “Jobseeker sentiment highlights that they believe the job market is moving very much in their favour, towards an employee market.”

Meanwhile, in the final quarter of 2017, there were 4% fewer job listings than in the same period a year previously. This annual fall is being driven by Science, Engineering & Supply Chain, where there were 30% fewer listings than a year previously.

Further data from the index showed that 54% of employees who responded to the survey are unable to save on their current salary as these employees find the cost of living does not match their wages.  Moreover, 68% of employees have no pension plans.

The monitor also reported that 67% of employees feel overqualified for their job. Meanwhile, Irish companies are slowly but surely moving away from the traditional model of the 9-5 hours, and allowing their employees to work more flexibly as over a third of employees are now working flexibly, according to the monitor.