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IRISH PEOPLE applying for jobs in Australia are being told by employers that they will only hire Australians.
This was amongst the difficulties that Irish immigrants experienced while working in Australia, as revealed in the RTÉ documentary ‘Making it Down Under’ which airs tonight on RTÉ One.
Jake Haynes from Dublin gave an account of his experience:
“In Ireland I just finished in UCD, the year before I came and I thought when I came out here I would be able to use my degree. But all the places I applied for were like ‘we only hire Australian people’.
If you said that at home in Ireland – we only hire Irish people – there would be uproar.
Later in the programme, Jake, who travelled to Australia on a working holiday visa, warned viewers not to assume the move is easy, saying: “They paint this picture of ‘it’s all cocktails and beaches’ but it’s really not. There really is an untold side to the story.
Some people survive over here but some people don’t.
Philip Healy, a friend of Jake’s, spoke about his difficulties – and how Irish backpackers can be exploited by unscrupulous employers.
Philip, who is from Co Louth, has been living in Australia for more than a year and has found employment with a Sydney hairdressers.
“You can get used here,” Philip says, “Some people can see ‘backpacker, get them’. It has happened to people that I know. Underpay them, work them way over the hours that they are supposed to be working, don’t get holiday pay… They will use you, they will work you into the ground but they know that the Irish are the best workers, so, they will try to get what they can out of you”.
Ireland has a strong link to Australia for years because of emigration and Australia’s past as an exile for convicts of the Commonwealth – over 2 million Australian citizens now identify as having Irish ancestry.
In 2013, an estimated 6,570 Irish people applied for skilled visas in Australia – although this has fallen to almost half of that (3,760) in 2014.
Making it Down Under airs tonight at 8.30pm on RTÉ One.
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I spent a year in Australia never experienced any prejudice, perhaps they just don’t want transient partying backpackers.
I am currently in Oz on a skilled visa and I agree it’s not common in cities and I haven’t seen any of this personally but I am aware of many Irish who were badly taken advantage of while doing their rural work. Their desperation to stay is what keeps them going.
With those piercings..
Surely the answer is to pretend to be Australian. It’s not a difficult accent to imitate, and you could return any personal items you nicked later
I wouldn’t hire some drunken clown in a Tipperary GAA jersey either. .
@Steven Cee: Do you know any or many ?
What a load of rubbish. I’ve been in Australia 4 years and never seen or heard of that. Sydney and Melbourne are huge multicultural cities and as an employer you’d be pretty screwed if you only hired Australians because they’re outnumbered. Not to mention the fact that it’s illegal. What probably actually happened is they said they don’t hire people on working holiday visas which I think is fair enough consideration the limitations.
I lived all over Australia for 5 years, mostly in Perth and I also find this a load of rubish. I’d also like to add that I believe the aussies are unfairly labeled racist. I found them if anything to be too politically correct. Some of the jokes you would get away with in in Ireland wouldn’t fly down there. At least in my experience
The big problem is when people don’t have the correct visa. If you’re on a holiday (or similar) visa, you shouldn’t be working. Get the correct visa and you’re sweet.
Same here, In Perth 6 years and worked all over. Total nonsense. Its purely visa related. Most employers wont hire foreigners on working travelling visas in full time roles. Not worth their while and with the economy contracting there plenty of locals looking for work.
I was one of those 6570. Just to give the other side of the story. I worked for an amazing company where the people were amazing, the atmosphere was laid back, the pay was good and the holidays were generous. The opportunities to travel were also abundant and not just in Australia. But the country has some of the most amazing places I’ve ever visited. And Aussies are some of the nicest people you’ll ever meet.
Fair play Australia, good to see some countries have a proper immigration policy.
Except this has nothing to do with Australian immigration policy but rather Australian employers’ prejudice against Irish people.
I’d say it’s more Australian prejudice against backpackers. I’ve met a few business owners in Aus who stopped hiring backpackers because it was common for them to up and leave without notice after a couple of months or even a few weeks. The employer would find out when they just didn’t show up one day leaving them on the lurch until they found a replacement. That type of behaviour ruins it for backpackers that follow.
Fair enough Awkward, but the report says they said “we don’t hire Irish”
That’s just one side of the story. We have no way of collaborating whether an employer actually said that or whether it was a subjective interpretation of what was said.
Why not?
Let Australian firms hire Australians and Irish firms hire Irish people.
It can be really disappointing here to go to a famous Irish pub and be served by a businesslike but rather surly foreigner.
Even more disappointing to go to a pub and find the staff have been banned from speaking Irish.
It segregates the community and society as a whole. Creates a “them and us” culture. A breeding ground for racism, bigotry, fundamentalism…etc. I don’t have a solution, just saying.
@Eamon Mac Gowan: The reason why in the service industry is so many foreigners (like me) might be the wages these workers are payed. I work at 5 star Hotel, and can tell you, all not managers are payed minimum wages, getting split shifts and often mistreated. This might be the reason why Irish do not do services so much.
#NoIrishNeedApply
Did you see this? Musgraves allegedy couldn’t fill jobs with Irish people, so had an open day in Poland to recruit.
Yet on their facebook page they had (Irish) people saying that they had applied for these jobs but never heard back from Musgraves.
Quote: “Why are they only looking for Polish workers and not list it in Ireland for all to see?”
I’m thinking they want longterm staff not people that will be moving on in 1 yr or so
I worked all around Australia back in the late 90′s. Never had a problem getting a job. If you get up early, 5.30am was the norm, work 12-14 hours in the sun picking fruit and veg. You will never be out of work. I had a ball living in the boonies with all the crazies.
@john culhane: I think the real problem is the “millianials” are going now and work is not in their vocabularies unfortunately. Yes kids you have to make an effort to get work and it will be tough especially manual labour seen as you are not qualified in anything but being “entitled” yet.
The headline is misleading and alarmist. It would appear that is the experience of one individual. I know of hundreds who have gone to Australia. I’ve never heard that from anyone else. There may have been some prejudice against some young Irish, but by all accounts well deserved. Irish young people wrecking apartments and drinking too much in large annoying groups. But on the whole, Irish experiences in Australia are very positive.
@Margie Murph: Maybe if they took out their earrings they might have a better chance.
Australians are very manly and wouldn’t be too impressed with that particular look.
Ironic, Irish people are not getting hired here in Ireland either!
Ouch!
Yawn. If you don’t like it, go home.
http://www.joe.ie/news/drunken-irishman-wielding-a-meat-cleaver-is-arrested-in-australia/558320
These woe is me stories have been going about for years. Sick to death of them. The Irish have always been treated great in Australia, when you read stories like the one about the goon above, or the Irish backpackers sponging from homeless kitchens in Perth it puts things into perspective.
Look at the heads on them ,, I know I can’t talk
Employers in Australia want stability, they dont want to be hiring every three months. Thats a pretty honest way to run a company
During the Celtic Tiger years, when employers needed willing & reliable staff, repeat, willing & reliable, we were blessed with the availability east Europeans with good English.
They were disciplined, motivated, energetic, & polite, & outshone the home grown pool available.
There was an recurring educational gap between ours & theirs, the military training in national service was very evident in males.
As someone who was hiring male personnel from 1965, these immigrants impressed me, & the failure of Irish society to eliminate illiteracy, & to prepare our young for the responsibilities of adulthood needs to be addressed by parents & the professions.
Lessons need to be learned from other societies.
I’d say you paid them peanuts willy
@William Kelly:
huh?
10 years in Australia and never heard that. I would say it was an isolated experience but makes for a nicely ridiculous headline.
Only hire Australians? fair play to them since it is Australia
About 10 years ago a manager in a major company, Fortune 500, very progressive, high up the human rights index and big into diversity said during a job interview he was giving me a chance and didn’t like to hire Irish people, would rather Eastern European staff as the tended to not show up for shifts or quit without notice…
These days I record all my interviews, if I wasn’t 19 at the time and knew what I did now I could have taken them to cleaners and not had to work at all through college.
@Drew TheChinaman :) How could you have done that?
Aren’t you Chinese?
Why? Because he offered you a job?
No… because surprisingly it went to a Polish girl.
If I was an employer and an interviewee came in and started recording the interview you wouldn’t have a chance of getting the job,imagine what you’d be like if you did get the job?
That’s the attitude. Out to try to sue an employer before you even have a job with them. Dream employee material right there.
@Alan b – I doubt very much if Drew is talking about overt recording. ….
Sure if you come home Enda Kenny will meet you at the Airport with a car & the keys of your new home!
What a load of crap. I have lived in Australia nearly 8 years now and never heard of that. In fact Australian employers like Irish people because most of us are known as good workers, and when there is a shortage of workers or a skill shortage, us Irish fit in better with Australians than Asians of Europeans with bad/no English. The backpackers visa has a stipulation that you can only work 6 months with any employer at a time, designed to encourage employers to hire Australians first, and backpackers if there is a shortage or for casual work. If I went looking for a full time job in Ireland and told the employer during interview that I would only stay 6 months in job, I doubt if I would get the job. A lot of job advertisements for better paying jobs or companies say Australian Residents only, which refers to your visa status, not your race. I’m Irish but classed as an Australian Resident because. If you want to come over here to travel mostly and pick up some casual work along the way, that’s fine. If you want to come here just for work that’s fine too, but look the part. I’ve seen mechanics, fitters, carpenters looking for work with no car or tools. You wouldn’t hire a tradesman at home with no tools or car. Employers got sick hiring backpackers who had already planned on moving city in a few weeks time, so they want to see car/ tools as a sign that you are here to work not just travel. If you want to get the best jobs, get the appropriate visa, not a backpackers visa
NINA from backpacker-land.
Paddy from gobackpackin was there before you and AUSSIE wised up.
These lads are your typical celtic tiger babys…..away from home for a few wet days and can’t deal with a bit of adversity…..go back to your mammys…
Paper will never refuse ink, some family & friends living there for years & never had problems!
Never heard such muck. I was there for 3 years and never came across any of it. Them lads must be useless latchico’s!!!!
@journal.ie When you advertise for contributions do you specially state “facts are optional but ragebait essential”.
Now here’s wake up call for Ireland, and how some employers here do very same to immigrants who come to Ireland. You reap what you sow.
There’s actually no proof that any of this ever happened, only the word of one individual.
My sister lives in Perth and her Irish accent does attract negative comments from time to time but mostly she gets along fine there. She does find the Australian treatment of the aborigines and the island detention of refugees reprehensible though.
if journal staff can’t make up fake news they get fired its a long cycle of bull
Just tell them you’re just out of jail or have been transported for sedition and appeal to their ancestors sense of reason.
The major problem with Australia is that it’s full of Australians..
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