Ireland will accept a record number of migrant workers this year, with the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment processing almost 21,000 working visa applications in the first five months of 2024.
New statistics released to The Sunday Times highlight that migrants from India and Brazil in particular are filling roles where there are labour shortages.
Of the applications, more than 6,400 workers are from India and 3,100 from Brazil, while 2,100 are from the Philippines. South African, Pakistan and Chinese citizens account for a further 2,700.
To date, the Irish government has rubber-stamped more than 15,000 of these applications.
Chris Smart, a researcher and economist at the Nevin Economic Research Institute, said the country was “on track” to welcome more than 30,000 non-EEA nationals from abroad in 2024.
“Pre-pandemic we were welcoming about 16,000 people into the country each year, but during the pandemic and last year that took a substantial leap to 38,000,” he said. The surge in 2022 was due to a backlog in the department but last year’s figures did not lag.
While worker shortages still exist in healthcare, childcare, teaching, the food industry and the tech sector, the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment made changes to the working permits — raising quotas for workers in industries that are struggling to recruit. It also added 43 extra categories for key workers at the beginning of the year.
A spokeswoman for the department said there had been a “significant increase in employment permit application in the first quarter of the year” after the establishment of new quotas and changes to the occupations list.
She added that the department had given the green light to 13,800 first-time employment permits and more than 400 of these were previously ineligible under the old rules.
Despite the changes to the visa process, industry groups say that workers who immigrate to Ireland face difficulties with securing accommodation. Others say that career progression at senior executive level can be challenging.
“The largest issue for those coming to Ireland in the restaurant industry is that they either cannot get accommodation or they cannot afford the very high rents,” Adrian Cummins, head of the Restaurants Association of Ireland, said.
Ireland is experiencing a shortage of chefs, and figures show that more than 200 in the profession have applied for a working visa so far this year. Cummins added that the responsibility to provide higher wages to cover the high cost of living was being unfairly passed down to Irish restaurateurs who operate low-margin businesses.
Vishal Anand, from India, has been living in Ireland for almost a decade and is the global technology officer and master inventor at a large US multinational.
He is considered a key worker in the IT and software development categories and a top voice in his industry when it comes to generative artificial intelligence. He said that once you exhausted a role, it was hard to move into another opportunity here.
Adrian Cummins says responsibility for higher wages is being unfairly left to restaurateurs, who operate on low margins
PAUL SHERWOOD
“If I were to look to move from my job now, there are not many other opportunities in Ireland. I would have to move to the US or the UK, where the population is higher,” he said.
Anand said Ireland was a great place for new graduates and middle-managers to gain experience and progress their careers, but difficult decisions had to be made when it came to career progression at the top.
“I’ve settled into life here now and I have become a citizen through naturalisation. I wouldn’t want to leave but if I do wish to move to a new role I would have to immigrate to the UK or the US,” he said.
Flavia Bianchi moved to Ireland from Brazil in 2015 and decided to stay because of the freedom the country afforded her. “I always feel really safe in Ireland and the people here are so warm,” she said.
Bianchi is a senior content strategist at the start-up accelerator Dogpatch Labs, based in Dublin’s Docklands. Her role is in a key tech worker category but she had to up-skill to secure it, studying for a degree in business at CCT College Dublin.
“It was fairly difficult to get a work permit. I had a student visa for two years because I came to study English, but when I decided I wanted to stay I went back to university,” she said.
Ireland is not just hiring from afar to fill jobs; figures from the job website Indeed show that 14 per cent of all foreign clicks on job adverts are coming from the UK. Also, 4 per cent are from Spanish workers and 3 per cent from France.