TWO-THIRDS of immigrants plan to stay in the Republic despite the recession and many working in jobs below their skill level, a new reports shows.
An EU-funded report on the training needs of young immigrants found 68 per cent of immigrants planned to stay on.
Half of the immigrants surveyed for the Pathways to Work report came to the Republic with their families and 44 per cent said their reason for coming was to make money. Just 21 per cent of the immigrants surveyed were unemployed and of those who worked, 44 per cent said they were satisfied with their job. But just two out of five said they had jobs appropriate to their skill levels.
The Immigrant Council of Ireland (ICI) was the Irish partner for the report based on 102 questionnaires with immigrants and 10 in-depth interviews.
ICI integration officer Fidèle Mutwarasibo said the results in the five EU states – England, Ireland, Spain, Poland and Italy – surveyed in the report were similar, with immigrants reporting similar barriers to gaining employment. “The young migrants who took part in the surveys identified some of the barriers they encountered as competition, bureaucratic procedures, recognition of qualifications, individual expectations, communication and social skills and access to information on workers’ rights,” he said.
The report was published as an EU agency dedicated to protecting fundamental rights called on states to provide more resources for equality bodies to stop discrimination against immigrants.
The EU’s Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) published a report revealing that many immigrants in Ireland have never heard of the laws or equality bodies created to protect them from discrimination.
Just 19 per cent of immigrants from central and eastern Europe living here have heard about the Equality Authority, the Equality Tribunal or the Human Rights Commission.
Just over half of sub-Saharan Africans (56 per cent) told the FRA they had never heard of the equality bodies.
More than half of sub-Saharan Africans (51 per cent), and almost a third of immigrants from central and eastern Europe (29 per cent) said they were not aware of any laws against discrimination in the spheres of employment, housing or entering shops or restaurants.
The FRA said this lack of knowledge of their legal entitlements and the equality bodies set up to protect them was leading to high rates of under reporting of discrimination.
Four-fifths of immigrants surveyed in EU states, who were discriminated against in the year prior to the FRA’s survey, had not reported it.
The FRA’s recommendation to increase funding comes just a year after the Government slashed the budgets of the Equality Authority and the Human Rights Commission by 43 per cent and 24 per cent respectively. Chief executive of the Equality Authority Niall Crowley resigned. The FRA report said equality bodies needed the resources to undertake campaigns to advertise their existence and the means to deal with complaints of discrimination effectively.
“There is a need to review the current and planned provision of resources to equality bodies so that they are able to address the needs of members of the public who can report incidents of discrimination to them,” it said.
The FRA also warned that the existence in many EU states of several different independent public bodies with human rights remits contributes to a diffusion of resources and gaps in mandates.
Go East: Students Eye Up China
A PARTY of 25 business students and lecturers from the Institute of Art, Design and Technology (IADT) in Dún Laoghaire, Dublin, will pay a 10-day visit to China later this month in search of job opportunities.
They will also contact colleges there in the hope of persuading Chinese students to study business in Ireland.
The 23 students from IADT’s business (honours) in entrepreneurship course, will be accompanied by two of the institute’s lecturers.
Michael Goss, organiser of the trip, said it was the first venture of its kind from IADT and had been prompted by the fact that “there are no jobs in Ireland”.
He said graduates of the four-year course last year were not receiving any replies to job applications so the students had decided to turn their attention to China where “of the 1.4 billion population, 300 million had spending power of over €50,000 each a year”.
The IADT students, ranging from first to fourth year, and including some graduates, leave Ireland for Beijing on May 19th and will be briefed there by Enterprise Ireland which has offices in the city.
They will also spend two days visiting the World Fair at Expo 2010 in Shanghai, where Ireland also has a pavilion. Some €200 of the €1,096 cost of the trip for each student was provided by IADT. The students raise the rest through their own enterprising and fundraising ventures.
