Gas Networks Ireland is searching for 14 of the country’s top recruits to join its sought-after and highly regarded Apprenticeship Programme commencing this October.
The four-year salaried programme provides mentor-led apprenticeships working on Ireland’s €2.7bn, 14,617km national gas network, which is considered one of the safest and most modern gas networks in the world.
Successful candidates will help to maintain and operate Ireland’s national gas infrastructure trusted by 710,000 Irish homes and businesses to provide efficient and reliable energy to meet their heating, cooking, transport and manufacturing needs.
They will also play a role in delivering a cleaner energy future for Ireland, as Gas Networks Ireland works to replace natural gas with renewable gases, such as biomethane and hydrogen.
Facilitated in partnership with SOLAS, apprentices receive on-site training with Gas Networks Ireland technical training coaches and attend formal classes in the Educational Training Boards, Meta facility and in appropriate Institutes of Technology.
On completion of the Apprenticeship Programme, successful trainees will be awarded a QQI Level 6 Advanced Certificate Craft – the national and international requirement for craftsperson status.
Speaking about the programme, Gas Networks Ireland’s Director of People, Nicola McSweeney said:
“The apprenticeship programme is vitally important for Gas Networks Ireland, as it allows us to attract the best talent and develop our plumbers and engineers of the future. Joining as an apprentice opens up a world of possibilities within the organisation. We are very proud to have a number of employees, who initially joined over 30 years ago as apprentices who are still part of the Gas Networks Ireland team today, including our Gas Technical Competency Training Manager, Brian Flynn, who now leads the apprenticeships training. We have a lot of knowledge to share and I look forward to welcoming our new apprentices.”
For further information and to apply to the Apprenticeship Scheme, please visit; www.gasnetworks.ie/careers. Closing date for applications is Monday 11 April.
A second delivery station will open in Dublin this autumn creating over 20 permanent jobs
Amazon has announced plans to open its first fulfilment centre in the Republic of Ireland, creating 500 new permanent jobs to help meet customer demand. The state-of-the-art fulfilment centre, which will open spring 2022, will provide faster delivery for customers across Ireland seven days a week, including one-day delivery on hundreds of thousands of items.
The 630,000 square foot centre at Baldonnell Business Park, Dublin, will hold millions of items to be picked, packed and shipped to customers across Ireland as well as the rest of Europe.
Recruitment has started for a range of new roles for the fulfilment centre, including engineers, HR and IT professionals through to health & safety and finance specialists and operations managers. Recruitment for the Amazon teams who will pick, pack and ship customer orders will begin next year.
A second delivery station will also open at Northwest Logistics Park, Ballycoolin, serving customers in Dublin and the surrounding areas. The delivery station will create over 20 permanent jobs, in addition to dozens of driver opportunities for Amazon Logistics’ delivery service partners and Amazon Flex delivery partners. The 83,500 square foot building is expected to be fully operational this autumn.
Huge fleet of Amazon Prime vans Dublin. source – techbuzzireland
The first delivery station in Ireland opened last October in Rathcoole, Dublin, creating more than 20 permanent jobs and working with 10 independent delivery companies who hired more than 150 drivers. Last year Amazon also announced plans to create another 1,000 permanent jobs in Ireland over the next two years bringing Amazon’s total permanent workforce in the country to over 5,000 people by 2022.
Amazon provides competitive pay, excellent benefits and a modern, safe and engaging work environment for its employees. Amazon pays all its employees in Ireland, whether they are full-time, part-time, temporary, or seasonal, at least €12 per hour. Employees are offered a comprehensive benefits package including include private medical insurance, life assurance, income protection and an employee discount as well as a company pension plan.
Amazon’s fulfilment network supports millions of businesses of all sizes worldwide through its Fulfilment by Amazon offering, and many of those local businesses are based in Ireland. There are thousands of small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs), authors and developers in Ireland growing their companies and reaching new customers with Amazon products and services.
What about Amazon.ie?
Whilst the awareness of the two new buildings have been no huge secret to many, especially those that work in the logistics industry this has been well known so all that remains is when will we see an Amazon.ie, well we will not be waiting to long it would be safe to say..
Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Leo Varadkar TD, said: “I welcome today’s news that Amazon will open its first Irish fulfilment centre in Dublin next spring, creating 500 new jobs. This, alongside the announcement of a second Dublin delivery station creating a further 20 new roles, will mean faster delivery of goods for customers all across the country and strongly underscores Amazon’s continued commitment to Ireland.
Since Amazon’s arrival here in 2004, it has become a significant source of employment – today’s announcement will bring its total workforce to over 5,000. I wish the team the very best of luck with this exciting new chapter.”
Martin Shanahan, CEO, IDA Ireland, said: “Amazon has had a presence in Ireland for 17 years now, growing and expanding its range of activities which has contributed significantly to Ireland’s tech ecosystem and our reputation as a global tech hub. Already a substantial and valued employer, the 500 additional jobs being created in this new centre will bring its permanent workforce to over 5,000 next year in Ireland. It is great to see Ireland continuing to attract investment and playing such an important part in the future plans of this global company. Amazon’s ongoing commitment to Ireland is most welcome.”
Minister of State for Trade Promotion, Digital and Company Regulation Robert Troy TD, said: “I am delighted to see Amazon continuing to grow its presence in Ireland. The opening of this new fulfilment centre will speed up deliveries for Irish customers and create 500 new roles, bringing Amazon’s headcount here to over 5000. This announcement is a significant reaffirmation of Amazon’s commitment to Ireland, and I wish all involved every success.”
Stefano Perego, VP Amazon’s Fulfilment Centre Operations in Europe, said: “We are delighted to be opening our first fulfilment centre in Dublin enabling us to provide faster delivery times for customers across Ireland. We are excited to be creating 500 new permanent roles which offer competitive wages, excellent benefits and a modern, safe and engaging work environment for our employees.
“The new state-of-the-art fulfilment centre and delivery station are a further sign of our commitment to the communities in which we operate. The new teams will play a crucial role in providing faster delivery to customers across Ireland including one-day delivery on hundreds of thousands of items.”
WIX, a leading cloud-based web development platform, has added a Customer Support Centre in Dublin, Ireland to further enhance its global support infrastructure and international footprint.
Wix has already recruited and trained a staff of approximately 100 support specialists and office operations personnel ahead of the office’s formal opening. The Dublin support team caters to Wix customers in multiple languages, including English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Italian, and Russian. Operations in Dublin officially began in September 2018, initially with a staff of nine. Beyond the Dublin location, Wix announced during their latest earnings report an additional growth investment into the next phase of its Customer Solutions organization.
“Our customer support teams are at the frontlines of our product growth and the work they do is invaluable to our company,” said Nir Zohar, President and COO at Wix. “We have significantly increased our global customer support team headcount since 2016, and with the addition of the team in Dublin, we’ll be able to better serve our European customers, and further support our millions of customers around the world. We were delighted to work with IDA Ireland who were wonderful partners in Dublin. Their team provided meaningful connections throughout the city making the process of creating our space there very easy to accomplish.”
Welcoming the announcement, the Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation, Ms. Heather Humphreys T.D., said “I am thrilled by this news and Wix’s decision to establish an office in Dublin. Wix is one of the most popular platforms used by both individuals and businesses to create websites, with over 150 million users worldwide. They will be a great addition to Dublin’s already thriving ICT sector.”
Executive Director of IDA Ireland, Mary Buckley also welcomed the news, stating: “Ireland has the youngest population in Europe with a third of the population under 25 years old and almost half the population under the age of 34. Companies such as Wix benefit from the wealth of multilingual talent, with more than 535,000 non-Irish nationals living in Ireland. Wix will service its European customer base from Dublin due to the multilingual and technological skills available here.”
About Wix
Wix is leading the way with a cloud-based website development platform for over 150 million registered users worldwide today. The Wix website builder was founded on the belief that the Internet should be accessible to everyone to develop, create and contribute. Through free and premium subscriptions, Wix empowers millions of businesses, organizations, artists, and individuals to take their businesses, brands and workflow online. The Wix Editor, Wix ADI, a highly curated App Market, Ascend by Wix and Corvid by Wix enable users to build and manage a fully integrated and dynamic digital presence. Wix’s headquarters are in Tel Aviv with offices in Be’er Sheva, Berlin, Dnipro, Dublin, Kiev, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, San Francisco, São Paulo, Tokyo and Vilnius.
Local family established company Craigmore, the leading UK and Ireland distributor of Kärcher cleaning equipment, has announced the opening of a new state of the art 5,000 sq. ft. showroom in Belfast.
The facility which represents a £300k investment, will create 10 new jobs and provide an unrivalled customer service experience for commercial and domestic clients throughout Ireland.
A Kärcher dealer for almost 25 years, Craigmore has experienced significant growth over the last two years and identified the potential of a dedicated Belfast Center to capitalise on the growing demand for Kärcher products. The in-store and online sales potential for the new showroom is around £1 million annually with exports to RoI representing a significant proportion.
Pictured at the opening of the new £300k Investment in the Kärcher ‘Center of the Future’ in Belfast are (L-R) Mark Venner, Chief Operations Officer at Kärcher UK, Lord Mayor of Belfast Cllr Nuala McAllister and Geoff Baird MD of Craigmore and Kärcher Center Belfast.
“The new system includes a Click and Collect app for customers which allows interaction between the store customers before, during and after the sale while tablet based software empowers staff to give the best customer service possible in-store and post transaction. In addition, the order management software for click and collect and repair requests allows front of house staff and those in the warehouse to communicate in real time, minimising any delays whilst integration codes enable all software within the new system to communicate and exchange data on everything from stock levels, availability and pricing,” said Mark.
Geoff Baird, Founder and Managing Director with Craigmore explains,
“This showroom is the first of its kind in the Kärcher network and represents the Gold Standard for our fellow distributors, with bespoke innovative software and hardware solutions to assist in the sales process as well as back end information gathering and sharing. Our location on the Boucher Road gives us access to the greatest concentration of potential customers with a dedicated site to service our all-Ireland customer base.”
Pictured at the opening of the new £300k Investment in the Kärcher‘Center of the Future’ in Belfast are (L-R) Mark Venner, Chief Operations Officer at Kärcher UK, Lord Mayor of Belfast Cllr Nuala McAllister and Geoff Baird MD of Craigmore and Kärcher Center Belfast.
Offering the full range of products for home and garden, professional, industrial, spares and accessories, this Kärcher “center of the future” has been designed to revolutionise customers’ expectations by offering an experience more akin to a high end car showroom, with a 900-shrub living wall featuring the Kärcher irrigation system, refreshments from Nespresso and Hotel Chocolat and an 9 screen LCD wall demonstrating the Kärcher portfolio of cleaning solutions.
“We currently supply Kärcher cleaning equipment to all sectors of businesses including haulage, car dealerships, car valeting shops, engineering, food, retail and hospitality, offering everything from £100 vacuums up to £75,000 bespoke cleaning systems or multiple machine installations,” says Geoff, “but this new showroom has been tailored to maximise appeal among domestic customers who will feel more comfortable shopping in the engaging environment we have created.”
Lord Mayor of Belfast Councillor Nuala McAllister said: “I’m delighted to see further investment in the city because with that brings jobs creation and a boost to the local economy.
“This new business is the first success story to come from the council’s City for Investment Service which provides a ‘soft landing’ for businesses to tap into council networks and get marketing, employability and skills support.
“Through this new service we will proactively work with investors, providing the professional and personal connections to help them do business in our city successfully. I, and each one of the elected members for Belfast City Council, are committed to continuing this work to deliver our ambitions for the city and our Belfast Agenda.”
A significant element of the £300K investment has been the development of a bespoke suite of software and hardware that completely integrates the sales and business functions to maximise customer satisfaction and operational efficiencies. Kärcher UK Chief Operating Officer, Mark Venner explains,
The Kärcher Center Belfast will be open from 8.30am to 6pm, 6 days a week and will have specially trained Kärcher experts on site to explain and demonstrate the full product range. For further information, go to www.karchercenterbelfast.com
