Almost one-in-five of people living now in Ireland are foreign-born, according to the latest figures from the ESRI, and the share of migrants from outside the EU is now larger than the share of migrants from other EU countries.
19.2% of all people resident in the country in 2022 were born abroad according to figures from the Labour Force Survey, the research institute says. That percentage has increased again since 2021 when 18% of all those living here were foreign born .
The ESRI says that “in view of the increasing acquisition of Irish citizenship among migrants, this report distinguishes migrants based on their place
of birth (Ireland or abroad).”
Thus, it notes that 13% of all people living in Ireland was a non-Irish national, indicating that 6.2% of all residents who were foreign born are now attained citizenship.
The ESRI also notes that there was a “significant difference” in unemployment rates, with those born abroad more likely to be unemployed (5.9%) in contrast to Irish born residents (4.6%).
Migrants from non-EU countries were most likely to be unemployed: with people living here from the Other Europe, Africa, and Rest of World categories showing unemployment rates of between 7.7% and 8.6%.
However, those foreign born had a higher employment rate (76.4%) compared to Irish born residents (71.6%).
The difference may be explained by the older profile of those born in Ireland, which will therefore have a higher percentage of those who are retired.
In fact, the figures show that compared to the Irish-born population, smaller proportions of foreign-born residents are in the two youngest age groups – between 0–14 and 15–24 years – and the oldest age group, 65+ years.
In contrast, most foreign-born residents (35.6%) were aged 25–44 years, while 30.4% were aged between 45-64.
The ESRI report said that while “overall, the gender of non-Irish nationals and foreign-born residents in Ireland is largely balanced across all groups in 2022”, “two migrant groups stand out: the groups of migrants born in Africa or ‘Other Europe’ had greater proportions of males than females.”
It also noted that “in 2021, Ireland had one of the highest percentages of migrant residents among EU Member States.”
“At 18 per cent of the total population, Ireland ranked eighth in the EU. Previously, most migration to Ireland was from within the EU, with a large share of the migrant residents born in other EU Member States.”
“However, in 2022, the proportion of residents born outside of the EU had overtaken the proportion of migrants from within the EU.
“The percentage of migrants from other EU countries decreased from 13 per cent in 2019 to 6.7 per cent in 2022, while the share of migrants from outside the EU increased from about 4 per cent to 11 per cent.”
“This change largely reflects the effect of Brexit since residents who were born in the UK were now counted as born outside of the EU whereas they would have been recorded as born in another EU country in previous years,” the research group said.