The decision by FAS to go to Germany to recruit workers in the first of a series of roadshows in EU member-states may have people pinching themselves just in case they wake up back in the dismal 1980s.
The State has seen its unemployment rate, at 6.4 per cent, draw level with Britain, its competitiveness ranking rising from 22nd to 11th in four years, and petrol and cigarette prices enticing Northern shoppers south of the Border.
But the reaction to the FAS initiative has bemused the State agency. It was announced last week that FAS would host a recruitment stand at the Handwerks-Messe NRW trade fair in Cologne from June 2nd-6th, followed by campaigns in Britain, France, the Benelux countries, the US and Canada. Media interest has been intense: apart from the domestic attention, radio stations have called from Germany and Canada, intrigued by the State's reversal of fortunes. FAS spokesman, Mr Sean Connolly, says AS the agency has held a similar campaign in Britain in the past, although the excursions with an information and recruitment stand to the Continent and further afield are a new departure. FAS is focusing on the teleservices, financial services, electronics, software, hotel and catering, and construction sectors, and hopes to build up a database of 10,000 people willing to take up employment in Ireland.
It is aimed at "reversing the brain drain" in the face of the growing realisation that the reservoir of labour supply is running low. FAS is carrying out an awareness campaign letting aspirants know about the number of jobs on offer, Irish disposable income levels and the accommodation problems likely to be encountered. Some information-technology companies are willing to provide accommodation to new employees for their first few weeks in the State.
"If you juxtapose this situation with the brain drain, now we are prudently identifying sectors where there are real, defined labour opportunities. The great Diaspora should be aware of it," he says.
But the announcement has not been welcomed by the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed (INOU). Mr Tony Monks, head of the INOU's enterprise section, says FAS is actively encouraging immigration while the longer term issue of 100,000 unemployed people is being ignored.
"If it is to meet short-term gaps that is fine, but there are long-term unemployed people here and they need serious investment," he says. The unemployed were not being seen as an economic asset or a pool of labour. Mr Connolly says the recruitment drive should be seen in the context of the common market with a common pool of labour. Although the campaign is aimed at attracting emigrants home, FAS is part of the European Employment Services (EURES) network, an association of EU recruitment agencies.
Vacancies are on display under the EURES network constantly and the indigenous population of EU member countries, whose language skills are particularly welcome in the telesales area, are equally encouraged to apply. Grafton Recruitment, one of the State's recruitment agencies, is going to Cologne with FAS, "piggybacking on the initiative", according to the company's corporate business developer, Mr Graham Lambert.
Demand for IT and language skills, outside of the norms of French and Spanish, has prompted the agency to advertise "at a very basic level" in foreign newspapers. But technology has played its own role in bringing down the barriers on recruiting. Grafton will interview prospective candidates through videoconferencing, where possible, and Mr Lambert says Europe will quickly emulate the US where more than 95 per cent of job vacancies are advertised on the Internet.
The demand for non-EU foreign workers, or gastarbeiter as the Germans would put it, will become greater if recourse to the EU labour market proves inadequate. The governor of the Bank of Ireland, Mr Howard Kilroy, is among those who have called for a relaxing of immigration controls, echoing the sentiments of recruitment agencies which are feeling the pressure of the skills gap.
The signs in recent months are that the State's reserve of people coming onto the labour market and the net immigration of 24,000 people has not been sufficient to address the demand for labour. In December, a Government report concluded that labour shortages posed a threat to the economy's growth, pointing to deficiencies in the construction, tourism, call-centre, transport and contract-cleaning sectors.
Although proposals to issue work permits to asylum seekers, almost 80 per cent of whom have some form of third-level qualification, have stalled at Cabinet level, the Department of Justice has introduced, on a year's trial basis, a new arrangement for non-EU nationals who wish to transfer to the State with their jobs for a maximum period of four years.
Mr Adrian McGennis, a director of the recruitment agency, Marlborough International Recruitment, welcomes the move saying that client companies have, up to now, found the work permit process cumbersome, and have been put off by it.
