50,000 immigrants a year needed, says CSO

Ireland will need 50,000 immigrants a year over the next 12 years if economic growth is to be maintained, the CSO will say tomorrow.

In its Population and Labour Force Projections - to 2030 on population and 2016 on labour force - the CSO will say growth cannot be maintained at 3-5 per cent a year relying only on an indigenous workforce.

Meanwhile, in a report to be published this morning, the Chambers of Commerce of Ireland (CCI) will say "the current Irish immigration system is stifling the development of a healthy and productive multicultural workforce".

At present, Ireland has 50,000 immigrants and 20,000 emigrants a year - net immigration of 30,000 a year.

Although immigration from the expanded EU is expected to remain high over the next number of years, a source within the CSO said yesterday that "those countries have even lower birth rates than we do, so if we think eastern Europe is going to solve our problems, we had better think again".

A growing proportion of immigrants is likely to be from outside the EU.

The CCI will this morning criticise the immigration and work-permit system. In its Labour Force 2004 survey, it says the processing of work permits is a problem for almost a quarter of all businesses. It also calls for the extension of work permits to immigrants' spouses.

The study was jointly carried out by the CCI, the National Consultative Committee on Racism and Interculturalism (NCCRI) and the Institute of Technology, Blanchardstown.

The CCI represents 12,000 businesses. More than one in five businesses interviewed employed non-national staff, and these non-nationals constituted on average 14 per cent of their workforces.

CCI's chief executive Mr John Dunne said while the survey showed the labour market was buoyant, with 96 per cent of businesses expecting staff numbers to remain the same or increase and 42 per cent having plans to employ non-nationals, many reported "significant difficulties" with the permit process.

The majority of businesses which included non-nationals as part of their business expansion rated the experience of recruiting non-nationals as "excellent" or "very good". Eight per cent said the experience was negative.