rish look to E.Europe, Wales to bridge skill gap
DUBLIN, Nov 12 (Reuters) - A dearth of workers to fuel
Ireland's budding IT and service industries is driving employers
to try to import skilled labour from Eastern Europe -- and even
try to convince the Welsh to commute across the Irish Sea.
The heart of Europe's IT industry, housing computer software
and hardware giants, including Microsoft <MSFT.O>, Dell
<DELL.O>, and Compaq <CPQ.N>, Ireland currently has hundreds of
IT jobs employers are deperately trying to fill, recruitment
consultants say.
"The big IT companies are all having same problems in
sourcing good candidates," said Graham Lambert, spokesman for
Ireland's biggest recruitment agency Grafton.
"A lot of them have gone to Prague, where there is an
abundance of well qualified IT people willing to come to
Ireland. And Warsaw is a good place to find people for the meat
industry," he added.
The Irish government is studying a relaxation of visa
restrictions for such workers and adapt school curriculums to
cater for the children of foreign workers.
And now Ireland's retailers, caterers and security firms are
looking to neighbour Wales -- which is suffering from high
unemployment -- for workers prepared to sail to work and so
avoid higher house prices in Ireland.
"The idea is that the Welsh workers would commute to work
from Wales from Monday to Friday," he said, adding the scheme
could help tackle Welsh unemployment which is as much as 20
percent in some areas.
REUTERS
Rtr 05:39 11-12-99 |
