Launched just one week ago, Hireland has already received 1,177 job pledges from businesses all around the country. Of those, 710 are in the Dublin region, whilst the remaining 467 pledges are from businesses located across nineteen counties.

Hireland is a volunteer, not-for-profit group that has developed a national communications initiative to encourage employers to hire one of the thousands of skilled people who are currently out of work.

It came about in February 2011 after a kitchen table conversation between a group of friends, who had lost other friends to emigration. Since then, it has grown to include students and people from the business, marketing and media community, all of whom have given their time and skills for free simply because they want to see the creation of jobs for the thousands of unemployed skilled workers in Ireland.

Even though Hireland only officially launched last week, it has already inspired a sister initiative in the United States of America, UhireU.S. which was announced at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York in September 2011. A sure way of future proofing a business is to hire more people, so business owners are asked to log on to http://www.hireland.ie/  and pledge a job today.