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Employer Characteristics and Practices as Drivers of Unfilled IT Vacancies

This paper assesses the nature and magnitude of recruitment difficulties currently experienced by Northern Ireland information technology firms. The empirical results provide tentative support for the view that demand-side influences such as employer characteristics and practices are important in understanding the occurrence of unfilled vacancies, with human resources management practices a major driver of current recruitment difficulties. However, recruitment practices and perceptions of firms cannot be assumed to be independent of supply-side inadequacies. Restrictive human resources management practices appear to be entirely rational, given that many firms have serious concerns relating to the technical competencies of new entrants from the educational sector and there is evidence to suggest that there exists a productivity cost associated with employing high numbers of new graduates. These findings suggest that any deficiencies currently existing in educational supply tend to be centred on quality as opposed to quantity.