African nationals living in Ireland have a higher unemployment rate than other migrants and Irish people. The new study from the Economic and Social Research Institute has examined how well migrants are settling in the country.
It has found that 16% of Africans living here are out of work, compared with 4% of people from Western European countries. The employment rate for Africans in Ireland was also very low at 45%, while 66% of Irish nationals were working. Lead author of the report, Dr Frances McGinnity, said the findings were concerning in relation to immigrants from Africa whereas people from Europe and North America had high levels of employment and educational attainment and were performing very well in the Irish labour market. The research also found that consistent poverty rates were highest for non-EU nationals at 29% compared with 8% for Irish people.
The study says that Ireland is one of the most diverse countries in the EU with 17% of people born elsewhere. In 2017, over 8,000 immigrants became Irish citizens, many of them originally from Poland, Romania or India. However, this is much lower than the peak seen in 2012 when over 25,000 naturalisation certificates were issued. On education, 37% of Irish people of working age had third-level education in 2017. This was lower than almost all non-Irish groups. Western European nationals (excluding the UK) were most likely to have third-level education, at 74%, Eastern European nationals were least likely, but the figure remained high at 35%.