Todays report published by the ESRI forecasts another year of strong growth in the Irish economy.with an expected growth rate of 4.2% in 2018
By any standard this is an amazing recovery and this figure is by far the strongest in the EU which is expected to grow by 1.9% for the same period.
However todays report points out a number of significant challenges not least of which is an acute skills shortage with the report showing that it is unlikely that there are enough people amongst those currently unemployed to meet further Irish labour market demand.
Therefore it is pointed out that immigration will be increasingly important.
The difficulty is relying on skilled professional migrants is that the report also shows that the rate of increase in national property prices has been rising since the second half of 2016 and this saw double digit growth rates in May of this year.
A further challenge for skilled professionals arriving into Ireland is the rapid increases in the rental market where rents are growing rapidly. Rents in quarter 2 2017 increased by 7% nationally with rents now at their pre-crisis rate experienced in later 2007.
Irish house prices rose at the fifth fastest pace among OECD countries in the second quarter of 2017 with Iceland,Canada,Czech Republic and Australia in the top 4 positions in that order .
Quite simply there is nowhere for the skilled professionals to live in if/when they arrive in Ireland.
The real challenge that may impact on the growth levels experienced currently by the Irish economy is the failure of the labour Market to supply skilled professionals in all sectors and occupations .
As the economy grows and the construction sector recovers the ESRI are projecting an average unemployment rate of 5.4% through 2018 with employment to exceed 2.12 million by end of 2018.
The factors outlined above could result in the Irish economy overheating, the mismatch of skills possessed by employees and the skills required to do their jobs needs urgent action at Government level.
As the Back 4 Good project was rolling out into 130 cites globally we discovered very quickly that key skills mismatch exist in most cities and Government bodies and Employers requested the creation of a platform that would provide e-learning along with skilled labour sourcing, we developed www.back4goodacademy.com to set out a 360 degree approach towards addressing skills shortages.
While ireland has the poytential to attract high skilled migrant workers what we have found from our direct experience in this area is that foreign workers who arrive in Ireland are working in roles that do not fully utilise their skills with independent reports confirming our experience and the ESRI data confirming that foreign -born workers in Ireland have the second highest level of over skilling in the EU at approximately 50% .
