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THE NUMBER OF work permit visas issued in 2012 dropped from the previous year, according to visa specialists.
Visa First said that in 2012, a total of 4,005 work permits were issued to companies in Ireland, down from 5,200 in 2011. It said that 2013 is set to continue the decline, with just 3,276 visas issued to date this year.
Despite this overall year-on-year drop, Visa First says that Dublin is getting a growing percentage of the total work permits year on year.
According to Edwina Shanahan of VisaFirst, there are a variety of reasons for the drop in permits:
There are more people trained up in Ireland in certain areas of expertise so they are now able to fill positions that only non-nationals could fill a few years ago; also while things are picking up in the Capital, this is unfortunately not the same for the rest of the country so the need for permits is reducing.
According the company, Cork is also seeing an increasing share of the work permit grants but at a much smaller scale to Dublin. It saw 417 permits in 2011, 358 in 2012 and 303 in 2013.
When it comes to the different industries that are experiencing skills shortages, VisaFirst found that the science, engineering and technology industries have received over a third of all the permits issued to date this year.
The ICT (information and communications technologies) industry is still top of the board for the numbers of Irish work permit visas issued. The top three players in Ireland when it comes to work permits are Facebook, Google, and IBM.
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The thousands that received work permits every year, where are they finding employment? We have had a mass exodus of our people every year due to many reasons, unemployment being one and basically not being able to maintain the family home financially due to austerity.
What assistance are those who receive “work permits” and who find Ireland a viable country to move to getting? It just do not make sense. Just like the government imposed embargo on nursing and Gardai, should there not have been likewise with….”WORKING VISAS”?
This is the same what people in the US, Canada and Australia say about Irish.
@Coffee. Canadian employers came to Ireland looking for….IRISH…workers?
To try and compare the likes of Canada with an Island that has had austerity imposed on its people and their economy is surviving on borrowed money; is a demonstration of ones naivety and lack of awareness or….CARE…of what is happening around them.
@Michael, IN my company for example, a company lured here by the promise of an ‘educated workforce’ we have had to hire from outside the EU in rder to find highly skilled staff members….
You would rather they didnt come here and didnt pay taxes etc?
You do realise that people on working visas are sponsored by companies here as well right?
Surely not Darren. Don’t we have the best education system in the world according to one minister for education after another??? Of course these people are needed, especially in IT. Have you seem what our secondary school kids are being though in “IT” classes?!?! I hope these employers need plenty of people who are highly skilled in word and excel….Total joke!
Michael Allen. Either you are incredibly naive, totally ill informed or just mischief making, i’m not sure to be honest. Your argument is at the very best very simplistic. The typical construction worker emigrating to Canada or Oz isn’t likely to be a computer programmer as well.
The Irish labour market is imbalanced with an oversupply of construction workers and undersupply of highly skilled IT professionals. We want what other countries have, Canada and Oz want what we have.
“Loud Sigh” if only it were as simple as you paint Michael!
@Darren…are you suggesting we do not have highly skilled workers in this country? The question must be asked what pay and conditions have your company offered that only attracts foreign workers?
I think this issue of foreign workers paying taxes seem to be a justification and a stick conveniently used to beat those with skills but find themselves unemployed or having to emigrate! There is something fundamentally wrong with a country who has upwards of 400,000 on the unemployment register,a mass exodus from these shores of young and old, forced austerity on those that remain and surviving on borrowed money. While our government are handing out approximately 5,000 working visas..YEARLY…. to foreign workers?
At a time when it is highlighted by the national media with great excitement when a company advertise creating employment of approximately 80 workers, and on the other side of the coin another companydeclare the loss of 100 jobs or more…….JESUS?
Yes these high skilled IT workers are lured by super low salaries to this rainy island and are undercutting the local workforce.
Glad you have it all figured out Michael!
Michael
Interesting to read your comments while noting at the same time that Canada is indebted as a Nation to a far greater per capita extent than Ireland!
Hire from outside of the EU? Is the educational system in Europe so bad that we have to look outside of Europe for workers. Or don’t Europeans don’t want to work in Ireland. With unemployment figures so high in the EU, there must be thousands of qualified people in science and engineering willing to work here. Or is it money. I know several people in these fields some with first class honours who could not find work. What is going on. Is it that the employer is looking for language specific workers
Michael, you haven’t a clue what you are talking about.
Sean old wise one, is that the only intelligent contribution you can make?
I’ve posted about 10 words. You have posted a few hundred. We both haven’t said anything intelligent. I think you’re losing this one.
i know Chris, i know. I don’t buy it. In all of the EU, they can’t find this skill hahahahaha wow. theres something else to this, like some kind of deal, money, exports for visas. Its not the shortage of skill here or in EU. Theres a deal going on. Had they said EU, then we wouldn’t be on to it, but stretching it is leaving this wide open. Its like they have to bring in say 2,000 visa workers from outside EU as part of an export aggreement, you scratch my back etc. Of course its salary too but my money is on a deal.
Shortage of skill in EU hahaha wow, sorry, open yer eyes.
What was Richard at this week? You’re getting warmer.
Teaching kids simple programming is one thing, but they will never get complexity and advanced algorithms until they have a decent level of maths. Calling a creative,nerdy kid a whizz kid, is a bit premature. Also for old people to say that IT is for the kids is a load of bollocks. Pure laziness from them. What was this article about again?
But sure we need jobs first anyway!
Well as the article says IBM, Facebook and Google are the companies that request these visas the most.
If you have the right skill set you can go and apply right now!
Did europe run out of mechanics.
No they ran out of brains.
The good days on social welfare are all but gone.
Some times u cant find person here what u need for lm barber and bring my barber from turkey cuz they do better job make me more business !!
thats so hi-tech, amazing skill set. we need to upskill barbers. pull the other one. we have thousands of top barbers here, they won’t work for 50 cent an hour though.
yeah, Irish classy barbers wouldn’t do the job for 4,99€… That’s what you want Osman… Get someone who’s with an Irish girl from kusadasy or Bodroom, and sort out the cheap ‘the best quality’ staff.
Romanians and Bulgarians don’t need work permit anymore and any national who stayed in Ireland for 5 years became citizen and if you stayed in ireland for 3 years and you have a child, child is irish born child so again you don’t need a work permit.
Most of my colleagues are naturalised irish or on IBC scheme. Simple as it is.
This figures look incorrect. The department of jobs, enterprise and innovation (who issue permits) publish their own stats, and you can see them here: http://www.djei.ie/labour/workpermits/
I cant reconcile their figures with this article.
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