Unlocking Potential: Invest in skills transfer programmes
Net migration into Ireland was positive in April 2024, continuing a pattern which has been in place since 2015. This means that more people have entered the country than have left it. There were 149,200 immigrants which was a 17-year high, also marking the third consecutive year with over 100,000 people immigrating to Ireland. Of these immigrants, 30,000 were returning Irish citizens, 27,000 were other EU citizens, and 5,400 were UK citizens. The remaining 86,800 immigrants were citizens of other countries. Analysing migration trends over the past 30 years, we see a relatively high rate of emigration in 1988 and 1989, during a recession, which gradually decreased over the next 10 years peaking again in 2012, whereas immigration figures rose slowly from 1990, peaking in 2007. (Chart 1)
Chart 1: Immigration, Emigration and Net Migration, ,000 people, 1988-2023
Migrant Workers
Census 2022 reports that 420,465 people in the work force were non-Irish nationals, with the three leading countries of origin being Croatia, Italy and Spain[1]. In terms of socio-economic groupings, nearly half (47 per cent) were classified in non-manual, manual skilled, semi-skilled, or unskilled occupations, compared with 39 per cent of Irish nationals. This is at variance with the high educational qualifications of immigrants, indicating that many are employed below their skill level. There is a need to accelerate the appropriate recognition of qualifications gained in other countries so that migrants can work in their fields of expertise. On the other hand, non-EEA nationals require a work permit to take up employment in Ireland in sectors where there is a skills shortage. In 2023, 30,981 permits were issued, 1,575 were refused and a further 641 were withdrawn [2]. A third of these (10,037) were for jobs in Health and Social Work.
Implement Skills Transfer Programmes
The numbers of migrants with a third level education continued to rise in 2022. Of those immigrating to Ireland, the number has increased (from 46,200 in 2021 to 70,300 in 2022) whilst the proportion has decreased (from 70 per cent in 2021 to 58.2 per cent of all immigrants with third level education in 2022). Note that a comparable dataset is unavailable for 2023 as the CSO notes that “there is now a significant number of immigrants living in communal establishments and therefore outside the scope of the Labour Force Survey (LFS) sampling frame which samples private households…. accurate estimation of educational attainment and principal economic status is difficult for this cohort and the methodologies are currently being investigated to allow the publication of these tables to continue.”
Migrants tend to be younger than the general population, with more than half of both immigrants (53 per cent) and emigrants (50 per cent) in 2023 aged between 25 and 44. People aged over 65 continued to be the least likely to migrate [3].
The proportion of emigrants who are unemployed has been in decline since 2012, reflecting the decrease in unemployment generally since then. The lack of affordable housing, affordable childcare, and other services is likely a contributing factor to the increase in employed and highly educated emigrants from this country. If we are to retain our skilled workforce, we need to take a broader approach to retention that takes a whole of life-cycle approach.
In light of higher educational attainment levels of immigrants into Ireland and the increasing number of Irish people returning to this country, there is a need for a skills transfer programme for returning migrants in order to ensure the skills that they have acquired whilst working abroad are recognised in Ireland. This is something that Social Justice Ireland has advocated for previously. A recent study from Eurostat found that across the EU, employed non-nationals are more likely to be over-qualified than nationals for their job. In Ireland, 41.4 per cent of workers from other EU countries were overqualified.[4] Given the investment made in the education of young graduates, it is essential that steps are taken to retain them and their expertise within Ireland, and to attract back those who have emigrated in recent years. Of course, this is coupled with the need to provide both decent work and infrastructure to support increasing numbers of immigrants who will need to be housed and whose healthcare and childcare needs must be accommodated.
There has been criticism of Irish immigration policy and legislation specifically due to the lack of support for the integration of immigrants and a lack of adequate recognition of the permanency of immigration. In January 2023, the ESRI published a report on the wages and working conditions of non-Irish Nationals in Ireland [5]. This Report found a ‘migrant wage gap’ in Ireland. Between 2011 and 2018, non-Irish nationals earned, on average, 22 per cent less per hour than Irish nationals which equates to 78 cents earned for every €1 an Irish worker earned. Of note is the smaller wage gap for those coming from West Europe, North America, Australia, and Oceania, “this is partly because they have higher educational qualifications, but they still get lower rewards for education than Irish workers.”
For many migrants, immigration is not temporary. They will remain in Ireland and make it their home. In turn, Irish people are experiencing life in different cultural contexts around the world. Ireland is now a multi-racial and multi-cultural country, and Government policies should promote and encourage the development of an inclusive and integrated society with respect for, and recognition of, diverse cultures.