Northern Ireland is facing “a quite scary” shortage of key skilled workers, Stormont economy minister Caoimhe Archibald has said.
This was because of ageing workers, too many not in work and British immigration curbs, the minister added.
“We have to look at how we’re actually going to fill those positions,” said Ms Archibald during a visit to Dublin where she addressed the Institute for International and European Affairs.
The looming difficulties are a further reason for a British-Irish agreement to make it easier for people living in the Republic and Northern Ireland to take up jobs on the other side of the Border.
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“On such a small island, it is critical that people can work as seamlessly as possible across the country,” she said, but those trying to do so run into payroll and tax issues that complicate pensions, mortgages and welfare entitlements.
Northern Ireland has a serious problem with the number of people who are economically inactive, with official figures this summer warning that one in four people of working age are not in work and are not seeking it.
The barriers facing people to get work can vary, she said, ranging from education, mental or physical ill-health, disability, or childcare, said the economy minister, who took over the role last year from Sinn Féin colleague Conor Murphy.
Stormont and employers are working together to see how and where barriers can be removed: “But there will be different reasons why people are not participating in the labour market,” she said.
The Whitaker Report in the 1950s paved the way for the Republic to integrate itself into the global economy, to be open to international capital and to focus on highly productive industries and exports, she said.
Though the Republic’s economic model has been “extraordinarily successful” in delivering “unprecedented levels of economic growth”, a new economic programme is now required, Ms Archibald said.
Such a programme requires widespread consensus and should be able to create a strong, resilient and fairer economy and consider new global realities including “America’s swing to protectionism”.
Three multi-nationals now pay 40 per cent of the Republic’s corporation taxes, with US-based companies accounting for three-quarters of that sum, she said, adding that the reliance on the US should be reduced.
The benefits of growth must be better invested for society’s long-term good and deal with the Republic’s failures around housing and poverty that have created social tension and discontent, providing “an all too fertile ground for far-right politics”, she also said.
