Online auction giant eBay has announced plans to hire an additional 450 people in the Republic of Ireland, boosting the number of staff at its operations centre in Dundalk, County Louth.
The latest recruitment drive will bring the company’s total number of staff – including its online payments service PayPal – up to 3,550 across the country. eBay says the new jobs will be for roles across its customer service, sales and compliance divisions. Hiring will start immediately, with the aim of finding 110 employees this year and the remaining 340 by the end of 2015.
Gary Hagel, Senior Director for eBay Customer Experience in the UK, Ireland and Rest of Europe, told TNW that the company considered a number of sites not just in Ireland, but in other areas of Europe too in order to expand its global operations. “But, as we looked at our business requirements, our need for certain language capabilities and the proven ability to find highly talented teammates, Ireland proved to be the best location for our expansion,” he said.
Global online payments firm PayPal announced this time last year that it would create 1,000 new jobs in Ireland over the next four years. That recruitment strategy is still underway, and should ensure that both eBay and PayPal keep pace with the growing demand for its services across Europe.
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Enda Kenny, Prime Minister of Ireland, was cited in a BBC report today saying eBay’s recruitment plans were “exceptional news” for the country. “The fact that global technology leaders like eBay and PayPal are expanding their operations here shows that we have the local talent pool, infrastructure and business environment to attract high quality investments,” he said.
eBay reported its fourth quarter financial performance last month, with revenues of $3.99 billion over the three-month period and earnings per share of $0.70. Those figures were markedly higher than expected, and added to the company’s total revenue increase of 17.8 percent in 2012, equalling $14.072 billion in total.
PayPal, meanwhile, has been teasing a completely new interface for users when they log in to the online payments service, following a homepage redesign in June last year.
Image Credit: Sean Gallup/Getty Images
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