Government work permit scheme expanded as staff shortages bite

The Government has moved to allow employers to address ongoing staff shortages in a range of areas including social and disability care, car maintenance and baking.

In all, 11 roles have been added to the critical skills occupations list and 32 have been added to general employment list, making it easier for employers to obtain permits for workers from outside the European Economic Area for the specified roles.

The expansion comes after a lengthy public consultation on the permit system conducted by Department of Enterprise. The range of measures announced on Wednesday also includes an additional 2,700 permits for the meat, dairy and horticultural sectors and increases to the minimum salaries that must be paid to workers coming to the State under the permit scheme.

The minimum salaries payable to those gaining permits will increase to €30,000 from January, up from €23,000 for meat processors and horticultural workers and €27,000 for healthcare assistants and home carers. The minimum is scheduled to increase to €39,000 by January 2026.

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New additions to the critical skills list, which generally includes highly skilled and professional occupations in which there is an acknowledged shortage of candidates within the Republic and the EEA, include meteorologist, chemical engineer and professional forester. A number of roles related to the construction industry are among the other eight added.

Roles in social care and disability services, car and HGV maintenance and several other trades are indications of areas in which the department has accepted there are ongoing shortages that employers cannot fill without bringing in workers.

Neale Richmond, the Minister of State for Business, Employment and Retail, said he accepted that employers in some sectors would be disappointed by some of the omissions from the updated list but said the number of submissions made during the review process had risen from 29 in 2021 to 112 this year with 350 changes of various types sought. More than 40 were ultimately made but, he said, other requests would continue to be considered on “an exceptional basis” where particular issues arose.

“It’s not a closed door,” he said. “Just before this review we approved 200 permits for NCT testers and we will engage with anybody who made a submission, wasn’t successful but can come back to us with a compelling case.”

Responding to the suggestion that the inclusion of occupations such as butcher, baker, upholsterer, electrician and car mechanics on the list of roles eligible for a general employment permit suggested a failure of the existing apprenticeship system, Mr Richmond said the Government accepts not enough people are going into such trades and that work in being done to “change the culture involved, increase accessibility, break down stereotypes and broaden out the range of apprenticeships available but while that will have an impact in the medium term, people need these skilled workers now.”

Mr Richmond said he expects the total number of permits issued in 2023 to come in at around 32,500, down from almost 40,000 in 2022. The decline, he suggested, was most obviously down to a fall in the number of tech sector workers coming to jobs in the State.

Asked if he expects the wider permit numbers to increase again as a result of the changes, he said: “I very much hope so. I want to see people coming to Ireland, I want us to be in a position to fill demand in these critical areas both from the employer and employee point of view but crucially for the clients who need the services of a mechanic or social care worker.”

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