Skip to main content

Surge In Emigration...

Surge in emigration as economic downturn takes toll...

THE NUMBER of people moving to live in Australia, Canada, the US, New Zealand and Britain over the past year has increased sharply, reflecting a major surge in emigration due to the recession.

New figures show Irish citizens have received 21 per cent more long-term resident visas for Australia, 49 per cent more New Zealand resident visas and 33 per cent more US immigrant visas.

There has also been a 100 per cent increase in the number of Canadian work permits issued to Irish people and a significant increase in the number of similar visas issued for Australia. The number of people moving to Britain has risen by 2 per cent in 2010, which amounts to just under 1,000 Irish people moving to Britain every month to live.

The figures from five of the most popular destinations for Irish emigrants are in line with recent data from Central Statistics Office, showing 65,300 people emigrated in the year to April 2010, the highest number leaving the country since 1989.

Britain and Australia are the most popular destinations for Irish emigrants but there is also a major increase in the number of people moving to work in Canada.

In the first six months of 2010, Canada issued 3,077 work permits to Irish citizens, which is more than the 3,047 it issued during the whole of 2009. This corresponds with a steady rise in Irish workers in Canada recently: 2,959 in 2009; 2,617 in 2008; and 2,392 in 2007.

Australia has seen a similar increase in the issuing of permanent residence visas. In the year to the end of June 2010, 3,041 Irish people got migration programme visas (for highly skilled workers), up from 2,501 a year earlier. A separate visa programme, which enables Australian firms to sponsor workers on a temporary basis, is also experiencing a big increase in Irish applicants. In the five months to November 30th, some 2,290 people received these visas, compared to 3,370 for the whole of the previous 12-month period.

However, the number of holiday working visas issued to Irish citizens under 31 years for Australia fell to 14,833 in the year to June 30th, 2010, down significantly from a record high of 22,786 in the previous 12 months.

Liz O’Hagan, founder of the firm Australian Visa Specialists, said this probably reflected the fact that many young people had already been on the programme and were now looking for ways to get long-term Australian visas.

Britain has not experienced a dramatic upturn in immigration. Some 5,630 national insurance numbers were issued in the first six months of 2010, suggesting full-year figures will surpass the 11,050 people in 2009 and the 10,550 people in 2008.

The US issued 287 immigrant visas to Irish people in the year to end September 2010. This represents a 33 per cent increase on the figure in 2009, although it is so small a number it is almost irrelevant to the figures.

Some 1,637 people gained legal permanent resident status in the US in the year to end September 2009 but no figures are available yet for 2010. Some 14,444 non-immigrant visas, covering students work programmes, intra-company transfers and other temporary workers, were also issued in the year to end September 2010.

Irish immigrant groups also suggest there has been an increase in illegal emigration to the US.

The number of permanent resident visas issued by New Zealand to Irish people is up 49 per cent at 434 in the year to end June 2010. It has also issued 4,010 work visas to Irish people, up from 3,936 in the previous 12-month period.

Dr Alan Barrett, who co-ordinates the migration programme at the Economic and Social Research Institute, said the emigration figures reflected one of the most depressing aspects of the economic downturn. He said, given there are few job opportunities in Ireland, it was probably preferable that people went away to work elsewhere to maintain their skills.

“But regardless of these possible benefits, emigration that is involuntary is saddening and brings back sad memories for people of my generation who left college in the 1980s,” he said.

Report by JAMIE SMYTH - Irish Times




Useful links:

Guide to Moving to Canada

Guide to Moving to New Zealand

Guide to Moving to Spain

Nursing Jobs in Australia

Jobs in Dubai

Popular posts from this blog

Property Crash Homes For Sale...

Hundreds of repossessed homes in Ireland to be sold by auction... UK property consultancy Allsop to hold auction in April at Dublin's Shelbourne hotel: Flats in Ireland that could have fetched €150,000 in the Celtic Tiger years are to be put on the market for as little as €25,000 (£21,000) in the country's first ever mass auction of repossessed homes. And, in a sign of how wide the property crash is, the latest item to turn up in liquidation sales in Dublin is a job lot of 15 cranes, including a pair towering over Anglo Irish Bank's half-built headquarters in the city's docklands. "Tower cranes were among the most sought-after heavy plant and machinery 10 years ago," Ricky Wilson of Wilsons Auctions says. "You couldn't buy them quick enough. Now they are left idle for two or three years on sites." He has 15 cranes worth €500,000 going on sale on 26 March, with German, Dutch and Polish buyers expressing interest. But it is the auction ...

Young, Irish And Out Of Here...

As the government continues to pump billions into our much discredited banking system, many Irish people unable to find work here are facing into a future outside of this country. John Downes, News Investigations Correspondent, spoke to some of the new Irish diaspora about their recent experiences of emigration... By any stretch of the imagination, they were a startling set of figures, prompting echoes of a past which we thought we had left behind. According to ESRI data released last week, we can expect net emigration of 60,000 in the year to this April – and a further 40,000 by April 2011. That's almost 1,000 of our best and brightest leaving every week. Yet the ESRI's predictions are simply the latest – if most stark – indications of a return to mass emigration among Ireland's unemployed, as the downturn has continued to take its toll. In September, for example, the Central Statistics Office revealed that Ireland witnessed a return to net emigration for the first time si...

More Allsop Fire Sales...

Allsop plans five fire sales a year... THE UK auction house Allsop and its Irish affiliate Space plans to hold up to five distressed property auctions a year following the success of its first auction last Friday when 81 out of 82 lots were sold for a total of €15 million. The next auction is scheduled for July 7th, when 200 lots will be auctioned, including apartments, tenanted shops, farms and houses. According to Space director Stephen McCarthy, his company is being inundated with requests from receivers, banks and individuals who want to sell their property fast. Many of the properties in Friday’s auction were sold by Bank of Scotland Ireland and it’s believe there is plenty more of this stock to sell. These include apartments in the Castleforbes development in the Dublin docklands, as well as units in Dublin 8 and in Castleknock. However, the agency is also considering taking on more agricultural land. One lot, a 55 acre farm in Co Wickow sold particularly well, making €42...