Exodus by migrants is providing Irish workers with a cushion against impact of downturn, writes GARRET FITZGERALD
WHEN WE talk about emigration, we usually mean the net flow of people out of the country – the balance between the total number coming to live here and the total moving elsewhere. Thus, when emigration was last at its height in 1989, the net outflow of 44,000 in that year reflected the departure of no less than 71,000 people, partly offset by the arrival of 27,000 others.
In the 1970s, Ireland had its first experience of net immigration, with inflows of 30,000 men, 20,000 women and 50,000 children, but there is no data from that period to tell us what the gross flows were in each direction.
The phenomenon of net immigration lasted until the collapse of the artificial growth briefly generated by increased public spending by the Lynch/Haughey governments in the four years after 1977.
That spending trebled our national debt within four years, and left a huge problem, as I found when I became taoiseach in 1981. Already by spring 1980, unemployment started to rise and within a year, the inflow of returning Irish workers dried up.
However, until 1983, the rise in unemployment that started in 1980 was not accompanied by emigration. Unemployed Irish workers are notably slow to look elsewhere for jobs – and in the 1980s Britain, where the vast majority of Irish people had gone in search of work during the previous half-century, was also in recession. Although our recession began in spring 1980, it was not until 1986 that the level of net emigration became significant, and no less than 80 per cent of the net emigration caused by the crisis at the end of the 1970s took place between 1986 and 1990.
The mess made of our economy since the end of the 1990s will lead to a further tragically large exodus of Irish people. But for the moment most of the 160,000 Irish workers who recently lost their jobs are remaining. Some have left the labour force, but a majority have registered as unemployed.
But while there has so far been no net emigration by Irish workers, a drop of 105,000 in the number of immigrants at work has caused a net outflow of 80,000. Not all of this is due to the recession: some departures may have reflected the pull effect of Poland’s growth rate of almost 10 per cent between 2008 and 2010.
Although immigrants constituted only 16 per cent of our workforce at peak, they have suffered 40 per cent of the job losses, with the result that their numbers at work have been reduced by almost one-third. By contrast, the proportion of Irish workers who have lost their jobs has been less than one in 10.
There is a widespread belief that the great majority of our immigrant workers came from eastern Europe – this is not the case. It accounted for less than half our total immigrant population. A majority came from western Europe or from the rest of the world.
In the case of Irish workers, a combination of job losses and the inability of many of those leaving education to join the labour force has led to an increase of over 75,000, or 6 per cent, in the number of those aged 15 and over who are outside the labour force.
By contrast, in the case of European immigrants, the outflow of workers returning home was accompanied by a decline in the number of their family members here, as many of these also have returned home.
The impact of this recession on employment has varied greatly between sectors. The most severely hit area is construction, which by the first quarter of this year lost half its manpower.
Agriculture comes next, with the number of people reported to be engaged in this sector reduced by almost one-third.
This phenomenon may at least partly be accounted for by the fact that, following the decoupling of EU payments from farm output, many part-time farmers found it financially advantageous to identify themselves for social welfare purposes with the non-agricultural activity in which they engage part time.
Two other sectors have suffered employment declines of 15 per cent: manufacturing and the wholesale and retail trades.
All other employment declines have been in single figures – at or usually below 8 per cent. Moreover, the communications sector and the three branches of the public sector – education, health and public administration – all recorded rises of 3 – 6 per cent in the past two years.
Surprisingly, in three other sectors where total employment has fallen, or at best remained static – transport, catering, and finance – during this crisis substantial declines in the number of immigrant workers have made room for increases of about 10,000 in the number of Irish workers employed.
I suspect that some years ago, these low-paid jobs went to migrant workers because Irish workers expected and secured better-paid employment. But now thousands of Irish workers who lost their jobs are glad to take posts at lower wages.
All the evidence suggests the inflow of immigrants during the past decade aided growth, but their departure has provided some Irish workers with a cushion against the impact of the recession.