Issues and Challenges in the Recruitment and Selection of ...

Chapter 3Recruiting immigrant workersin Ireland: the experiences ofemployers.3. IntroductionIn this Chapter, we turn our attention to the practices of employers whenrecruiting workers. The data here is drawn from the survey of employers and fromthe consultation with employers in both the public and private sectors. This isaugmented in some instances by additional information from the social partnersand private recruitment agencies.The survey of employers focused on those sectors that employ large numbers ofimmigrant workers: manufacturing, construction, wholesale, retail & trade, hotels& restaurants and health & social work. Among the 122 employers who respondedto the survey, there were 101 who had recruited immigrant workers.Of these:• over three quarters had employed workers from Eastern Europe (EU);• one third had recruited workers from Asia;• just under thirty per cent had recruited from Western Europe and asimilar proportion had recruited from Africa (including South Africa); and• just under twenty five per cent had recruited from Eastern Europe (nonEU).A little over two thirds of respondents to the survey said their organisationoperated a formal set of equality policies and practices in recruitment andselection. Among this group, one quarter said their equality policies and practicesspecifically referred to the recruitment of non-Irish nationals and / or ethnicminorities. The vast majority of respondents (95.9%) said they recruited directly inIreland; 14.4 per cent said they recruited directly from abroad. Thirty per cent saidthey used the services of agency workers.The interviews with employers were carried out during June and July 2008, aperiod which saw continuing slowing down in some sectors of the Irish economy,most notably construction and services, in which large numbers of immigrants43