Ireland's Immigrant Workers Wooed Home

Ireland's army of immigrant workers are to be beckoned homeward as economic conditions in Eastern Europe show signs of turnaround.

The annual Opportunities Exhibition in Croke park will, for the first time, see 18 countries take stands to highlight vacancies in construction, information technology, call centres, engineering and a myriad of other areas.

Immigrant workers have been widely considered an integral part of facilitating the rise of the Celtic Tiger, the vast majority of which were Poles. Now the largest minority community in Ireland with over 260,000 registered to work, Polish people are to be singled out by five agencies from their own country as salaries in construction have doubled in recent years.

The next largest minority are Lithuanians, followed closely by those form the UK, coming to just under 100,000 workers.

However, Kevin Quinn, manager of International services with FAS, said that while five Polish regions were seeking staff, people in other regions were anxious to get work in Ireland.

"Ireland is still a very attractive place for many overseas workers," he said.

According to Workpermit.com, the total number of immigrants that entered Ireland was 109,500 in 2007, up almost 2,000 over the previous year and substantially higher than for any other year since 1987; showing none of the predicted slow down for immigration and employment in Ireland.

Labour shortages remain commonplace in Central Europe, with the largest shortages in the automotive and construction industries.

Last year, the Czech Republic entered into a scheme to draw in 3,500 workers by providing permanent residence in the country after, depending on circumstances, only one and a half years of working there.

Available to workers throughout Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Canada, India, Kazakhstan, Macedonia, Moldova, Monte Negro, Russian Federation, Serbia, and Ukraine, the project only managed to tempt 888 skilled workers – under a quarter of their target.

(DW)