Cross-border labour mobility is bouncing back having stalled during the pandemic, with Ireland ranked as the fifth most attractive labour market in Europe for international job seekers, according to new research by jobs site Indeed evaluating 21 countries.

During the pandemic European cross-border job search at its trough fell 32% below pre-pandemic levels, but by April of this year it was off by just 10%.

For Irish based jobseekers looking overseas, the trough was also a 32% decline, rebounding to 16% below the pre-pandemic level by April.

Searches by people living outside Europe looking for jobs in Ireland fell by 39% at its lowest point, recovering by April, but still 19% below the pre-pandemic average.

The Indeed report is based on anonymised information on over 800 million cross-border job searches carried out on Indeed between January 2019 and April 2022, and over 100 million job postings.

In Association with

The survey was run in collaboration with Censuswide with sample size from Ireland including data from 250 businesses and 1,000 individuals.

Ireland is one of only five markets experiencing a “brain gain” rather than “brain drain” with more incoming interest from jobseekers than outgoing.

While most European countries have a negative “net interest score”, in Ireland 8.2% of jobseeker searches were incoming and 7.9% outgoing.

The top five countries of origin for overseas jobseekers seeking a role in Ireland are the United Kingdom (26%), United States (7%), Spain (5.9%), India (5%) and France (5%).

Indeed speculates that the trend is driven in part due to labour shortages and demand for qualified workers, particularly in highly-skilled and hard-to-fill positions.

The research found that four out of five Irish businesses have hired foreign nationals in the last five years, and the same proportion plan to recruit foreign nationals for their operations in Ireland in 2022.

Sectors most likely to attract overseas interest include positions in software development, IT, management and accounting.

Of the Irish employers surveyed by Indeed, one in three urged the Department of Enterprise to speed up the process of issuing visas and permits, to reduce the cost, and to lower immigration requirements.

Indeed economist Jack Kennedy (pictured above) commented: “This survey shows that Ireland is an attractive destination for internationally mobile, highly skilled people, whose experience is in high demand, particularly in the technology sector."