New figures released by the CSO reveal that the Southeast region of Ireland, including Kilkenny, has shown the largest increase in those signing on – a rise of two and a half per cent.
An emerging trend is the across-the-board increase in the number of women on the Live Register. The largest such increase was in the Southeast, where the figure rose by nearly eight per cent since last year. There are now nearly 20,000 women signing on in the region, almost a quarter of whom are under 25 years of age.
Meanwhile, more than 100 people turned out to an event in Hotel Kilkenny last week, to find out more about securing a visa for emigration and work abroad. The crowd included parents with their teenage children, young couples, and groups of friends who were exploring the possibilities of leaving their homes in Kilkenny for fairer shores.
The event was hosted by VisaFirst.com, a company which arrange visas for Irish people wanting to travel and work in Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, as well as helping to match Irish CVs to the demands of foreign employers.
“We are running these roadshows because of the huge demand for information we are experiencing from Irish people looking to work abroad,” said Edwina Shanahan, manager with VisaFirst.com
“There are approximately 7,300 currently on the Live Register in Kilkenny and there is definitely a percentage of these people interested in securing employment opportunities overseas”.
The company estimates to have facilitated the placement of some 1,000 white collar workers by the end of 2012, and a similar amount of trades in full time permanent employment. All those placed will be initially on 457 sponsorship visas and visafirst.com will organise permanent residency for those who want to remain on for an indefinite time period.
“While thousands of Irish left our shores last year, I would say another 50,000 will emigrate again next year and the larger proportion will go to Australia and New Zealand,” said Ms Shanahan.
“However, more recently we have been contacted by Canadian employers also looking to fill vacancies in Canada’s east coast so we would envisage a significant number of people heading that direction from Ireland in 2012.”
In total across Ireland, there was an increase of 1,700 people on the Live Register in November 2011, bringing the seasonally adjusted total to 448,600.
