News

Hospitality return delay until Summer

The Government is likely to extend the Level 5 Covid-19 restrictions until late February at next week’s Cabinet meeting.. outdoor

The hospitality sector may not reopen properly until late May or early June. Restaurants and cafes had hoped to be in a position to reopen outdoors in April but this is now being viewed as increasingly unlikely.

Senior figures in the industry are understood to have recently asked Government if a reopening would be possible after the end of March when the most vulnerable people in the country have been vaccinated against Covid 19 but were told this was not likely.

This is because the risk would still be too high with around 80 per cent of the population still needing a vaccine at that stage. The emergence of new highly transmissible variants of coronavirus have further complicated matters.

World audience for 'Virtual St Patrick's'

Organisers of the St Patrick's Festival have confirmed there will be no street parade in Dublin this year. parade

Instead, virtual events will be held on a special online TV channel 'SPF TV'.

Parades have also been cancelled in Limmerick, Ennis, Cork and other cities and towns.

In a statement, the festival management team said although there will not be any gathering on the streets it will be "reimagining" it with "marching bands, pageantry and ceremony" during the festival, which will run from 12-17 March.

"A rich and dynamic programme of festival events, created by hundreds of artists, musicians, performers, makers, creators, arts and live events workers and community organisations across Ireland, will run on the St Patrick's Festival TV online channel over six days and nights," said Aileen Galvin, the festival's Marketing and Communications Director.

Hospitality vacancies shrink during Pandemic

Sectors most vulnerable to a tightening of public health restrictions, including tourism, travel, and airlines, experienced a 96 per cent drop in vacancies over the past year, hotelstaff2 according to an Irishjobs.ie survey.

Vacancies in hotels and catering were down 82 per cent while those in beauty, hair care, leisure and sport sectors were down 56 per cent. These sectors continue to bear the brunt of the Covid-19 downturn, the report said.

Job vacancies were 23 per cent down year-on-year in the final quarter of 2020, according to IrishJobs.ie. The recruitment website compiles quarterly vacancy numbers to gauge the strength of the Irish labour market.

In contrast to the March-May lockdown, when economic activity ground to a halt, the employment market was more resilient in the final quarter of the year as businesses showed signs of adapting to the new Covid reality, it said.

The most resilient sector in 2020 was science, pharmaceutical and food, which saw vacancies increase by 161 per cent year-on-year.

Other sectors that performed strongly were medical professionals and healthcare (up 123 per cent), IT (up 49 per cent), construction (up 5 per cent).

Each of these sectors posted both year-on-year growth and quarterly growth in job vacancy creation, according to the report.

The group’s index also shows a sharp demand for remote working opportunities, with a 53 per cent increase in people searching for work-from-home roles from January 2020 to December 2020.

Shannon looks to post-Covid future

Mary Considine, CEO of Shannon Group, reaffirmed its commitment to restoring air services to Shannon Airport and visitor numbers to its heritage sites as soon as the aviation maryconsidine

and tourism sectors reopen.

"With the right supports, the foundations for recovery exist within Shannon Group, namely our improved core airport infrastructure, vibrant property portfolio, strong tourism offering and vibrant aviation cluster," she said.

"With Ryanair set to reopen its base and operate 14 new routes from Shannon for Summer ’21 there are green shoots, but we recognise that recovery will be slow, rebuilding will take time, but we will get there," she added.

The catastrophic impact of the pandemic on global aviation is reflected in passenger numbers at Shannon Airport which recorded a decrease of 1.37 million people in 2020, a 79% decrease on the previous year.