There are a number of initiatives which employers can avail of to reduce the cost of taking on new staff. Two specific measures, funded by Government, are the PRSI exemption and the Enterprise Employment Grant.
The PRSI exemption can be summarised as follows : an employer who creates a new job for a person who has been unemployed for six months will save about €3000 over a year because of reduced employer contibutions for pay related social insurance. This has been backdated to January 01 2010. The job must be full time and must be an additional not replacement job. The job must last for six months and is limited to an existing 5% of the workforce, or 5 new jobs for smaller companies.
The Enterprise Grant is a maximum of €15,000 (50% limit) per full time job created and must fulfill a number of criteria set down by the Enterprise Board which are detailed on their website.
I would hope that SME’s take full advantage of these incentives should a genuine skills gap exist which warrants the recruitment of a full time member of staff. I am disappointed that neither facilitate companies who have a genuine need to take on a part time expert to grow their business. I’m going to have to start working on this.