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

It is reasonable to assume that in the context of a contracting labour market andnet migratory outflow, at least some of the issues raised in this report will notfeature as priorities in ongoing labour market policy and debate, at least in theshort-term – this probability was commented on by some of those interviewedover the course of the research. On the other hand, issues such as the recruitmentof ‘agency workers’ have already emerged in the national debate and are likely tofeature into the future (thirty per cent of the employers surveyed for this researchsaid that they use agency workers). While the debate concerning the use ofnon Irish agency workers is likely to predominantly focus on the displacementof Irish workers, it is worth noting that the agency workers themselves andthe communities into which they are placed will face challenges of integrationand that the agency worker approach can result in a lack of opportunity foradvancement for the immigrants themselves as they are employed by the agencyand not the company they work in and consequently they may not have the sameentitlement to apply for other and better jobs within the same company.However, and notwithstanding current economic and labour market difficulties,it is evident that immigration will continue to be a significant feature 9 of themodern world and the global economy. Within this context and as an essentialand critical part of economic recovery, Ireland will need to attract foreign workers.Tomorrow’s Skills: Towards a National Skills Strategy (EGFSN, 2007), identifiesIreland’s current skills profile and provides a strategic vision and specific objectivesfor Ireland’s future skills requirements. The report projects that the labour forcewill have grown to about 2.4 million by 2020. Of the projected 950,000 newentrants to the Irish labour market over the period 2006 to 2020, the reportsuggests that 640,000 will be sourced through the school-leaving population and310,000 will be sourced through inward migration (an average of almost 21,000per annum over the period). Allowing for the now evident inaccuracy of theprojections in terms of the current context and the short to medium term outlook,the general thrust of part of the report’s contention that Ireland’s economicdevelopment will rely heavily on inward migration, remains true.In that regard a representative of IBEC consulted as part of the research said thatIreland needed to take a longer-term view on attracting people to work here andthat includes, for example, the identification of the skills we need in the Irisheconomy to achieve sustainable, high-end enterprise over the medium to longerterm; and, the development of our social and economic infrastructure (includingthe quality of childcare, civic services, education and so on) such that Ireland isseen as an attractive place in which to live and work.9 “Pressure for migration – legal and illegal – is an unavoidable feature of the emerging worldorder to which all societies and states must respond” (NESC, ibid)72Issues and Challenges in the Recruitment and Selection of Immigrant Workers in Ireland