changing times ?

salysol

just came across this,by accident.

Late on the evening of May 17, 1986, a young rock star stepped out on to the stage at Dublin's RDS and announced to the heaving crowd: "This is a song about pride -- don't let them take it away!"
The singer was Bono and the event was Self-Aid -- a benefit concert that aimed to highlight record levels of unemployment, to invite donations and to encourage job pledges. Some critics took issue with Bono and his pals' big night out, saying it did nothing to address the core roots of unemployment in the 1980s.
Ireland had been packing economic emigrants on to the boats for decades. Most of these had traditionally been of the unskilled variety, destined for tough slog at their final port of call. In the period from 1924-30, 70pc of Irish male emigrants were unskilled workers or from an agricultural background; 90pc of female emigrants were domestic or service workers.
The new wave of mass emigration from Ireland in the 1980s was a different animal altogether. Emigration was most concentrated at two ends of the class/education/wealth spectrum. Unskilled and semi-skilled workers were still leaving in droves -- a quarter of all emigrants to England were construction labourers. But also quitting the country in high numbers were the university and college graduates.
The loss of these bright minds, one of Ireland's few precious assets at the time, was popularly referred to as the 'brain drain'. In 1980, around 8pc of college graduates left to find work and further training abroad. By the time the decade would close, that figure would soar to almost 30pc.
Present-day third-level students might be curious to note which graduates in particular swelled the outgoing ranks. Unsurprisingly, those whose professions were associated with the construction industry frequently found themselves on the next plane out after graduation. A 1987 report from the Higher Education Authority (HEA) on the immediate fate of third-level graduates makes for stark reading. Half of all engineering and 70pc of architecture students emigrated within six months of graduation. Foreign companies developed formidable recruitment drives in which they would sign up Irish students early in their final year for well-organised graduate training programmes abroad.
Graduates of the science disciplines similarly left Ireland in large numbers, pulled by the postgraduate study and experience opportunities abroad. There was also much more competition between students for what few jobs there were in their sector in Ireland, as they represented a large proportion of the numbers graduating from college. Law students, for example, only counted for 4pc of the total third-level population.
Around one-fifth of commerce and business studies graduates were leaving Ireland every year as emigration and unemployment levels reached their zenith in the late 1980s. Accountants would find they had the choice of joining one of the 'Big Six' firms in Ireland at the time, picking up one of the rare independent jobs -- or emigrating.
HASH(0x8b9a3d4)
Engineering, science, business -- these are all sectors one may easily imagine being held hostage to the rip tides of recession as factories shut, manufacturing collapses and multinationals pull out.
There are surely some recession-proof professions, right? Hospitals will always have patients; children still need to be educated; people will always suffer toothache. But the embargo on public sector recruitment in the 1980s was devastating.
A heated debate in the Seanad in 1984 decried the inadequate number of dentists employed by the State to deal with the 900,000 children who needed dental care. Unemployment never out of double figures, there were an inordinate number of young families on benefits. It was a crazy situation where a surplus of dental graduates were forced abroad because there was a shortage of posts here.
All the while, many thou-sands of public patients languished on waiting lists.
The situation was similar for graduating doctors: 70pc of them emigrated upon graduation in 1987 -- 17.6pc to Africa, the same percentage to the Middle East and 35pc to North America. Some of these can be explained by foreign medical students returning to their native countries, but by no means all.
In 1988, 27pc of those newly qualified to teach in secondary schools left the country; only 6pc of new primary teachers emigrated, but this might be explained by the very specific criteria of that job from state to state.
The 'brain drain' sucked the marrow out of Ireland's social and economic development in the last recession. During the boom years, some highly educated people could return to take advantage of the new opportunities at home. In the mid-1980s, half as many nurses were emigrating from Ireland as there were graduates from nurse colleges. By the mid-1990s, Ireland had become a prime importer of foreign nursing staff.
The Government has been operating manpower studies since the end of the 1980s in a bid to identify the supply and demand patterns of our third-level graduates -- but now the tide appears to be turning again.
In 2005, one in three doctors were leaving Ireland for foreign shores. The ESRI says 50,000 people will emigrate this year. Do we need Bono to tell us what comes next?

Scofflaw

This is a blog post, not a discussion opener.

moderately,
Scofflaw