Emigration goes full circle and nears record high of the 50s

THERE has been a 65% increase in the number of Irish workers moving overseas since 2002.

The annual emigration figures from the Central Statistics Office were the highest since 1992.

Last year, the number of people classed as emigrants was only 200 short of the highest five-year emigration average of the 20th century — a record set between 1956 and 1961.

The recent quarterly national household survey revealed that official emigration from Ireland has grown from 25,600 in 2002 to 42,200 in 2007.

This has been offset by immigration figures for the same period, which last year meant that on balance, there were 67,000 more people coming in than going out. Piaras Mac Einrí, of University College Cork’s centre for migration studies, said the statistics signalled a considerable trend.

“Certainly the change in the migration levels is dramatic according to these figures and certainly make for very interesting reading,” he said.

“There are two things that jump out at you. The first is the rise from 800 to 7,000 of people going to the [eastern European region] in three years. You cannot imagine that amount of Irish people going there to work, so you would think it is people who came here to work returning home.

“The other thing is the amount of people going further than Europe or America and particularly the big increase in the amount of 25- to 44-year-olds moving rather than people in the younger bracket,” he said.

The most significant increase revealed was the volume of people going beyond the traditional destinations of Britain, America and Europe.

A member of the CSO’s migration team said these were classed under the “rest of the world” tag — however, it was considered to largely mean Australia given its popularity.

Since 2002, the number of people migrating to the “rest of the world” rose from 8,500 to 19,000 — almost double the amount in any other category.

And reflecting the anti-terrorism immigration policy in America, the number of workers crossing the Atlantic has dropped by 40%.

Mr Mac Einrí said given these general trends it deserved more comprehensive investigation.

“There is something happening but either this is affluent kids doing a gap year, older Irish workers going abroad or people going home. To say what the real reason behind this would be conjecture without more information.

“You either need exit interviews with people leaving to see what their plans are or you need to get details from the destination countries,” he said.

With the economic boom in the past decade the reasons for emigration do not mirror the 1980s when similar amounts of people went overseas seeking work.

This peaked in 1989 when there was a dramatic jump to 76,600 emigrants in 12 months.

For details, see http://migration.ucc.ie