The recruitment of foreign workers on work permits will be drastically reduced from next year, employers have been told by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment.
From next May, when 10 new states join the European Union, the "great majority" of Irish employers' overseas labour needs will be met by workers within the union, the Department says.
As workers from these countries will not require work permits, the inflow of migrant employees requiring permits will be significantly reduced.
In a letter to the main employers' representative bodies, the Department strongly indicates that the permit system will be scaled back next year.
The recruitment of largely low-skilled workers increased dramatically during the economic boom of the past few years when there was great demand for migrant labour from outside the EU.
Work permits are issued to employers for workers from outside the European Economic Area (EEA), which comprises EU member-states plus Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland. Nationals of these countries do not require work permits to take up jobs here.
The numbers of annually renewable work permits issued increased from 6,250 in 1999 to 18,006 in 2000, 36,436 in 2001 and to 40,321 in 2002. The system is demand-driven, with the permits issued to employers rather than employees.
This has led to concerns among trade unions and migrant support groups that workers are effectively tied to their employers, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation. However, their repeated calls for reforms of the system to allow the permits to be issued to workers instead of employers have not been acted upon by the Tánaiste's Department.
Despite the growing number of redundancies, the numbers of permits issued this year has remained high. A total of 27,396 were issued in the first seven months, almost half of which are renewals of existing permits. The main sectors which have recruited employees on work permits are the services industry, catering, agriculture and fisheries.
The Department has in recent months restricted the type of jobs for which foreign workers on permits can be recruited on the basis that there is a sufficient supply of suitable labour in Ireland or the EEA. Employers are legally obliged to try to fill vacancies with Irish or EEA nationals before seeking work permit applicants.
In its letter to employers' bodies, the Department says it is confident that in light of EU accession, "we will be able to assist employers in finding the great majority of their overseas labour needs from within the enlarged EU, thus obviating the need for work permits".