Irish Eyes Are Wandering: Economic Crisis Prompts Another Emigration Wave-Part 1

Moreover, Ireland has long had a history of emigration anyway (from famine, persecution, war, etc.).

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International Business Times spoke to an expert on Ireland to discuss the present crisis and how it differs from previous periods of economic hardship on the Emerald Isle.

Professor Cillian Ryan is Dean of Liberal Arts & Sciences and the Jean Monnet Chair in European Economics at the University of Birmingham in the UK.

IB TIMES: Can you estimate how many Irish are now leaving the country (on a weekly or monthly basis)?
RYAN: According to the latest figures from the Central Statistics Office, net emigration was approximately 34,100 last year. About 76,400 people emigrated from Ireland (or 6,383 per month) and 42,300 immigrated into Ireland.
Of those who left it is estimated that a little over half were Irish, just over 40,200. Among returnees, about 17,100 were Irish. Therefore, the net emigration by Irish people was about 23,100, or about 1,900 a month.
That figure of 23,100 for Irish emigration is the highest recorded since 1990, although it remains well below the rates seen during the mid-1980’s, when the bulk of the 40,000 annual emigrants were Irish rather than some combination of Irish and others as we see now.

IB TIMES: What about Eastern European immigrants? Are they also departing Ireland?
RYAN: Indeed, another big story is the reversal of the Eastern European immigration into Ireland – only 9,000 people from this region entered Ireland last year, down substantially from a figure of 52,700 in 2007.
Overall there has been a net outflow of 35,000 Eastern Europeans over the last three years (although the number has tapered off significantly this year with a net outflow of just about 6000.
This group is also disproportionately represented in Irish unemployment statistics, suggesting that at least some are prepared to tough it out rather than head home or move to other alternative employment markets.

IBTIMES: The Irish unemployment rate is something like 14 percent. How high do you think that figure can rise to before it peaks?
RYAN: The Irish jobless rate is currently 14.2 percent, having peaked at 14.7 percent last April. It could, of course, rise again.
Historically, Ireland has not gone much over this level – joblessness reached 16 percent in the mid-1980s – precisely because emigration has always acted as a safety valve and the Irish have been willing to leave the country.
It would be also be fair to say that when unemployment rates increase like this, the 'black' [underground, untaxable] economy also tends to rise, and the true jobless figure is probably slightly less than the headline – but this is true of most countries.

IBTIMES: Ireland has frequently in his history seen waves and waves of emigration. What, if anything, makes the current emigration story any different from previous episodes?
RYAN: Irish waves of emigration were typically associated with downturns in the economy -- for example, in the modern era, we suffered recessions in the 1930’s, 1950’s and the 1980’s.
Prior to the 1980s, emigration from Ireland tended to mean just that, once one left that was it, returning was rare.
It addition, most emigrants back then were not college graduates, with a preponderance of people with modest skills. The experience of the 1980s changed all that, although I don’t think we fully appreciated it at the time.
Thus, since the 1980s, we witnessed more emigrants who were highly educated and highly skilled. When the Irish government moved to liberalize secondary school education in the 1960s, this led to a large expansion in the pool of university students by the late 1970s and early 1980s. Of course, there were not enough high-skilled jobs available in Ireland for these graduates.
However, it was precisely these graduates (with their accumulated foreign experience) that international firms were subsequently able to tap into during the Irish economic boom of the 1990s and onwards. So, many returned after relatively short sojourns abroad (5-10 years) usually to take up senior posts, often in the same firm they had worked at overseas.

IB TIMES: So, now we are seeing more Irish emigrants who will only stay briefly overseas?
RYAN: The experience of the 1980s has made the prospect of temporary emigration less daunting, especially for the young. So, there is now much more of a sense of going away for a few years to experience living abroad, and potentially to return with new or additional skills and experience.
While this may not turn out to be the reality, the point is, emigration is less daunting now than in 1980.
However, I should emphasize that even in the best of times there was still significant Irish emigration (outward and inward). For example, in 2006, 15,000 Irish people went abroad, 18,000 returned. Thus the motive for such movement is more than just economic. For some it is the experience of working abroad (as in the Australian Working Holiday visa), for some it is about broadening their skills (both employment and education), and for others it is the opportunity to live in foreign cultures with different values.
Some find that their new locations suit them better and stay, while some return. What is probably true is that the incentive to avail of these opportunities increases when the economic situation deteriorates in Ireland.

IBTIMES: Historically, Irish emigrants usually went to UK and US. Where are they likely to go now?
RYAN: At the moment a colossal 30 percent of emigrants are going to Australia – this is a mixture of young persons’ working holiday visas (by definition one-year, short-term) and a drive by Australia to recruit skilled workers which overlap with the largest categories of unemployment in Ireland, particularly with respect to the building industry and various technical skilled workers.
The UK still receives about 25 percent or Irish emigrants; however it is believed that this comprises a mixture of recent graduates and professionals probably returning to jobs in the UK and a smaller cohort of building and unskilled workers who are largely searching for work in a construction market which is itself performing poorly.
In declining order of importance the other destinations are the E.U. (17 percent), New Zealand, Canada (both about 4-5 percent) and the U.S. (slightly less 3-4 percent).
Obviously, Eastern Europe also figures highly (13 percent) but this is believed to be largely the returning Eastern European workers.
So yes, the pattern does look very different from the traditional UK/US split. It is also markedly different from the 1980s when there was actually a large unskilled illegal migration to the US which was regularized ex-post by the awarding of a disproportionate number of visa lottery places to Irish people. Emigration to the U.S. now is almost entirely regulated and consists of skilled graduates.
For what it’s worth the crude characterization is that construction workers are going to Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, while young graduates are going everywhere, mainly to the UK and continental Europe. Young adventurers (holding 1-year visas) are also going to Australia.

IBTIMES: As EU citizens, are Irish now going to Germany as well, given its booming economy? Or does the language difference preclude such a thing?
RYAN: No, language is not an issue. As I said earlier, about 17 percent of Irish emigrants are moving to the original EU-15 nations (excluding the UK), including Germany.
In general, Irish citizens’ language skills are pretty good as a consequence of being forced to learn the Irish language from a young age, and by studying at least one continental language up to school leaving age.
This means that if Irish emigrants don’t already have the relevant language skills or have it at a fairly poor level, they nevertheless can pick it up relatively easily. Significant Irish communities in most major European cities make the transition for newcomers relatively easy.

IBTIMES: Are young women also leaving Ireland, in tandem with men?
RYAN: Yes, in the 15-24 age category (believed to be mainly 18-plus-year-old school-leavers) the figures are close to evenly split with males just fractionally ahead (22 percent vs. 20 percent of total emigrants).
This age cohort represents about 42 percent of total emigration.
The largest single category (45 percent) are the 24-45 year-olds where male emigrants exceed females (27.5 percent vs. 17.7 percent). This suggests that there are a significant number of men in this age group going abroad seeking work alone, leaving family at home. Given the ease of travel between the UK and Ireland this may be a sensible option for some who are being pushed abroad for work, although the figure may also mask predominantly professional workers doing short-term assignments abroad.

IBTIMES: Which segment of the Irish economy has been hurt the worst by the economic crisis?
RYAN: Building and craft workers -- without a shadow of a doubt. This sector has completely imploded and there is no new building taking place. Remember this sector also expanded significantly in response to the property boom. These businesses attracted Eastern European workers, but also many Irish.
After that it really depends on when one got into the housing market! However, whichever sector one works in, if one bought a house, say after 2003, and were heavily mortgaged, then the financial crisis is a real worry.

IBTIMES: What about the public sector?
RYAN: In theory the public sector is undergoing significant changes and reductions in expenditure. There is a public sector hiring freeze and significant wage cuts (15 percent on average), and in theory job losses, but these are still voluntary and at present are being achieved through natural wastage.
However, even with salary cuts public sector workers are well paid by UK standards (a product of the boom years and comfortable budget surpluses). So if one is already in a public sector job, and bought a house before the boom in house prices, then you are doing okay – maybe not as comfortable as four years ago, but there are no real deprivation issues.
For public sector workers who bought a house after 2003, salary cuts are having a very real negative impact on living standards.

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