Irish Property Market chat II - *read mod note post #1 before posting*

In that case then it is clear the housing crisis is almost xenophobic and racist; "oh it's just Indians and Africans that come here to do the low paid jobs which require them to share bedrooms in order to make the €1000 pm rent for the room, who cares that rents are so high". Definitely an element of that in the "I'm alright Jack" set of Irish society.

I would consider well paid people those that earn the average (not median average) wage, most likely those in the MNCs where they also have good benefits (worth a couple grand per year most likely when they have subsidised food, transport, health insurance etc.). A single person who just moved over to work in a MNC on €35k would have around €3-3.5k net and could pay €1000 for a room to rent with headroom to live and save a bit.

What exactly is your point?

That we shouldn't have high paid MNC employment in Ireland?

Do you think the 100,000+ irish born ermployees that live here & work for MNCs would agree?

My point is that entry level roles in the MNC i work for are being mostly filled by immigrants, who require housing.

My second point was these roles are not high paid imo. I asked the OP what their opinion of high paid was.

OP clearly doesn't understand tax in this country based off their net take home figures for 35k. So they've a warped opinion of what high paid is.

Maybe you could clarify your point as im not fully understanding what youre trying to say re irish born ermployees of MNCs (of which i am one)?

My point is that MNCs need a multinational workforce, just as they do in every other country, including those countries with much larger labour forces than our own.

If we want the MNC opportunities here, we will need an international workforce and that is a good thing.

I know plenty of irish born in their twenties that work for MNCs. If those jobs were not in Dublin, a good few of them would be living abroad by now.

I'd agree with that. I've worked in MNCs for 15+ years and historically it was majority non-Irish only in Sales and Customer Support roles (because of the two+ fluent level language requirements). But all the other roles were majority Irish.

But in the last few years the government has really loosened the visa regime for hiring non-EU candidates, which has rapidly changed our hiring profiles.

And this has resulted in a huge amount of non-EU people moving to Ireland and putting pressure on the housing market. About 40,000 in 2024 alone, which is an absolutely huge number during a housing crisis.

Theres no way people earning €34k (as it is currently) should be qualifying for work visas during this housing crisis, unless they're in essential healthcare roles. Thats an entry level position in tech, which can easily be filled with a local candidate. The requirement should be €80k a year or more - actual high performers.

Which countries are they hiring the lower skilled roles from?

Indian employees have the highest median and mean salaries of any nationality in Ireland, with 50% earning over 45k per year; certainly not low skilled labour.

The Visa list is something the govt could look at, but would low paying roles in care and hospitality be filled by Irish/EU workers? I dont know.

Student visas will probably be looked at.

India

If 50% of Indians are earning less than €45k a year, thats by any definition low skilled labour - they're not even paying the higher income tax rate.

During the worst housing crisis in the history of the Irish sttate we shouldn't be issuing work visas to anyone, outside of healthcare, for anyone whos not at least medium skill / medium earner. Which is €80k+ in the main MNC industries of tech and finance.

High skill / high earner would be more like €120k+.

Thats one way of looking at it. The other is that these MNC's weren't able to fill these roles from what was available at the time and canvassed the government to relax visa rules so that they could fill these positions. We have had close to full employment the past few years, it's likely the MNC's have run into significant hiring issues. I suppose the difficult balancing acts for the state to maintain is to try help these companies hire and relax the visa rules when knowing it all puts extra pressure on the housing market.

Do Irish graduates apply?

Im not privy to who applies.

You've moved the goal posts from "low skilled" there, I note, when you didn't like the financial facts.

The foreign nationals working in healthcare aren't whats being discussed. And immigration by returning Irish people, or EU citizens, can't be reduced or limited.

MNC staff being recruited in large numbers from non-EU countries in recent years is something that can be instantly reduced if the government so decides. The visa requirements could and should very easily be revised to ensure its only actual high skill / high earners who get them.

Nobody should be issued a work visa to move to Ireland to earn €35,000 p.a. in an entry level position in tech or finance during the worst housing crisis in the history of the state.

You are saying that Indians are coming to Ireland under these Visa conditions and working for less money and under worse working conditions that the equivilent Irish person? Get a grip.

The big issues with those areas you mention are qualifications and english. What can companies do if people from those countries don't want to come to Ireland (for one reason or another)?

There are plenty people on these visas working in higher paid roles as well.

That doesn't surprise me. It's possible that a lot of "Irish based" graduates have secured "proper" jobs before they leave college, don't go down the graduate route or simply go off travelling for a while.

As I said, companies all across the board have been finding it difficult to find the right people.

As someone who works for a large tech MNC, and knows plenty of friends who work in others, quite literally exactly this yes.

If an advertised position can't be filled by an Irish/EU candidate after a period of time the company has two choices: increase the salary and improve the working conditions enough to attract an Irish/EU candidate, or apply for a work visa for an Indian (or other non-EU) candidate who will take the job as it already exists.

Bringing in large numbers of immigrants from poorer countries willing to work in worse conditions, for a worse wage, than local workers is an extremely well researched and well known method of keeping local salaries down. Its not a remotely controversial idea.

So what kind of "in worse conditions" would an immigrant from a poorer country working in entry level tech in Ireland have to endure, relative to the local worker?