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The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment (DETE) have recently published comprehensive employment permit statistics for 2024, providing valuable insights into Ireland’s labour market and trends to anticipate for 2025. This is essential reading for anyone planning their workforce for the year ahead.

In 2024, a total of 39,390 employment permits were issued, which is a 27% increase on the 30,981 issued in 2023. Following this trend, we can expect to see an even further increase in the number of permits issued in 2025, indicating the presence of skills shortages in the Irish labour market.

Ireland’s Employment Permits Sector in Statistics: Reflecting on 2024 and Planning for 2025

The majority of permits were issued to Indians (13,566) Brazilians (4,553), Filipinos (4,049), Chinese (1,962), Pakistanis (1,742), South Africans (1,631) and Americans (1,119). These were closely followed by Zimbabwe, Nigeria and Malaysia. The breakdown by nationality has remained largely the same over the last number of years, indicating that Ireland continues to draw its labour pool from the same traditional sources, like India and Brazil. This trend is expected to continue in 2025, although more and more permits are being granted to Sri Lankans, Mexicans and Chileans.

The sectoral breakdown of permits issued by industry highlights high numbers of permits issued in Health & Social Work (12,501 permits, 32% of the total), ICT (6,788 permits), Agriculture (3,625 permits), Hospitality (3,358 permits), and the Financial sector (2,318 permits). These figures are unsurprising, given the well-publicised labour shortages in these sectors and their reliance on non-EEA staff.

DETE also publish a breakdown of permits issued by company, giving valuable insight into what employers are hiring the most non-EEA employees. Meat processing, healthcare and tech companies dominate the top 10, with Dawn Meats obtaining 663 permits, Google obtaining 401 permits, Amazon obtaining 387, and Nua Healthcare Services obtaining 383 permits. This demonstrates the continued reliance of Ireland’s key sectors on non-EEA employees and these trends are expected to continue through 2025.

The breakdown by location figures released demonstrate that employment for permit holders is still concentrated in the typically built-up cities of Dublin (48.5% of the total), Cork, Kildare, Limerick and Meath, with 1,297 permits and 1,269 permits being issued for work in Waterford and Galway also. The geographical breakdown indicates traditional reliance on cities which is unsurprising, bolstered by strong industry in the midlands counties. This may diversify as working from home continues to remain popular and the government focuses efforts to spread out development throughout Ireland.

DETE’s annual data release is useful in helping to assess the 2024 permit landscape and shows keys indicators for 2025 which stakeholders should begin planning for now. The figures indicate Ireland’s continued reliance on key labour pools in the usual sectors, with the amount of permits issued trending up year-on-year.

(All above figures are from DETE’s website)