The desire to find work is often credited as the number one reason why immigrants come to Ireland. However, many find that opportunities are simply not available to them, and as such there is a significant and growing number of immigrants here who are unemployed.
Census figures don’t lie: unemployment rates among immigrants are almost twice as high as those among the indigenous population. What’s more, immigrants from the European Union are seen as more likely to find a job than those from non-EU countries, especially China or Nigeria.
What seems to be the problem for most immigrants in Ireland is not necessarily unemployment, but rather underemployment. Many have been thoroughly educated in their home countries, so much so that a high standard of education has been a consistent feature of immigrants to Ireland since the mid-1990s, and continues today. Immigrants are also much more likely to have a third-level education or higher compared to their Irish counterparts.
A recent study by the Immigrant Council of Ireland (ICI) looked into the downward mobility of Indian, Chinese, Nigerian and Lithuanian immigrants employed in Ireland. Indian and Chinese workers were more likely to find a job within their field, however Lithuanians and even more so Nigerians were seen in considerable downward mobility, forcing them to find jobs well below their skill level.
Those in the health sector are seemingly more able to get jobs within their field, however at a still much lower level. Many trained outside of Ireland in various medical services may not find a job in a hospital or clinic, but can sometimes find a position in home care.
However, its even lower-skilled jobs that are more often the case. One immigrant from Bucharest, who holds a degree in optometry, says he can only hope to find a job delivering newspapers since moving to Ireland.
In 2006 a study was done on Polish immigrants working in Ireland, which found that they were some of the most overqualified workers in Ireland, yet received lesser pay than other Irish citizens or other immigrants working in the same position.
Indeed, the EU Survey on Income and Living Conditions for 2004 found that immigrants in general earn 18 per cent less than Irish workers in the same position. This is further augmented in immigrants from non-English speaking countries, who earned 31 per cent less than their Irish counterparts.
Many immigrants also find that they cannot get their qualifications formally recognised in Ireland. Those who went to medical or engineering school in another country have difficulty attaining the proper recognition to be able to work in their field in the Irish market. And even if they can get their qualifications recognised via the National Qualifications Authority of Ireland (NQAI), individual employers may not accept foreign or unfamiliar degrees or diplomas.
One woman who received a third-level engineering education in Japan could not get her credentials recognised by any engineering employer in Ireland. She is now a cleaning woman, carrying out contracts to clean personal homes as well as school dormitories.
That’s surely a situation that few of Ireland’s immigrants considered they were signing up for.
Madeline Rosenbarger is an intern with Metro Éireann from the United States.
