The signs of economic growth are clear. They appear in every shop window and fill newspaper appointments pages and give the many new recruitment websites plenty of business. The signs are for "staff wanted". Urgently.

Evidence of a labour shortage was underlined in the Small Firms' Association 2000 employment survey, which showed that the small firms sector would create 64,000 jobs if it had the numbers to fill them. It also showed 69 per cent of companies had vacancies, but 91 per cent could not fill them. Another 91 per cent said they would favour work permits for non-EU nationals.

Unemployment fell below 4 per cent last year for the first time and FAS went as far as South Africa and Eastern Europe with its Jobs Ireland campaign to attract skilled workers to work in Ireland. The much cliched Celtic Tiger, it seems, has turned the labour market on its head and looks to rear African, Gallic, Asian and Czech cubs to name but a few of the different parts of the world that people are migrating from to work in Ireland.

Jobs Ireland launched a brochure last week which Mr Greg Craig, the head of the FAS Jobs Ireland campaign, explains "is being sent out to Irish embassies and consuls abroad so that when people call in looking to work in Ireland they get this, in effect, living and working in Ireland brochure".

The Jobs Ireland website www.jobsireland.com itself is proof of the success of the recruitment drive abroad; it has three million hits a month and there are one million page impressions on the site, and more than 40,000 people have CVs registered on it. There are in excess of 5,000 job "specs", and one job spec, Mr Craig explains, could cover 200 jobs. Employers put the jobs up themselves on the site and have access to a database of candidates, from which they can e-mail with job offers.

More than 18,000 work permits (including new ones and renewals) were issued in 2000 - an increase from 6,262 for 1999 and 5,716 for 1998. Mr Craig believes they were all issued as a result of the Jobs Ireland programme.

Altogether, he says, approximately 43,000 people came into Ireland last year from abroad. (Members of the European Union/European Economic Area do not require a work permit or visa.) "The target, incidentally, given to us by the Government is 200,000 over four years. So we are on target, in effect. The 18,000 is a figure for non-Irish and non-EU, that's three times what it was in 1999. We are also obviously getting Irish emigrants moving back and EU nationals moving into Ireland." Permits are issued for a year and work visas for two years.

In November Jobs Ireland hosted two shows in South Africa. More than 30,000 people attended both shows with 20 Irish employers, both multinational and indigenous, recruiting. Some multinationals, Mr Craig says, also offer great location packages, which can range between £5,000 (€6,349) and £30,000.

Australia, Moscow and the US are the next destinations on the map for a recruitment drive. "IT (information technology) and construction professionals (architects, planners, civil engineers) and the construction sector in general (plumbers, carpenters, bricklayers, painters and decorators) and of course nurses are the key sectors for us in our plan," he says.

There is also a huge demand in unskilled areas such as the hotel, catering and services sector. Because the rates of pay are not as high, these can be more difficult to fill, says Mr Craig. In the SFA survey unskilled labour came top of the list, with 44 per cent of all companies saying they couldn't recruit in that area - 24 per cent were having difficulties with skilled labour, 19 per cent for administrative staff and 23 per cent for technical and IT.

The SFA survey, says director Mr Pat Delaney, found "86 per cent of companies said that they would recruit non-nationals, but that the system itself was proving problematic in terms of the time lag effect, how long it takes the process of bringing in someone from overseas". The employer's organisation IBEC, in the past, has called on the Government to put in place a simple, speedy and transparent working visa system for non-EU nationals.

What Mr Delaney is concerned about, however, is the growth in racism and racist type activities in the workplace. "It is fundamental to good human resource management," he says, "that it is not allowed to take any root in any company big or small. If Ireland is to take its place among the most competitive, most advanced economies we are going to have to move away from this idea of parish and parochial-based views into more international views. An ethnic workplace is part of that."

IBEC, with the Congress of Trade Unions, the Construction Industry Federation and the Equality Authority, has already taken action on preventing racism in the workplace.

According to IBEC's director of social policy, Mr Brendan Butler, the development of a comprehensive immigration policy would bring improved living standards for immigrants and for the State as a whole. It would go a long way towards minimising the fears on which racism feeds. It is vital, he stated, that Ireland does not develop a reputation as a racist state.