Dr. Thomas Conefrey:

The tight labour market for construction workers was mentioned. We looked at what happened to construction workers who lost their jobs during the crash between 2009 and 2013 and found that a significant number of people who lost work either moved into other jobs or emigrated. We did not find evidence of a significant pool of unemployed construction workers. It was suggested that we were running out of these workers. The role of migration is important for Ireland and the labour market is extremely open. In good times we see significant inflows and there are outflows during a downturn. In the year to April last year there was a net inflow of 34,000 workers. Even though the domestic supply of construction workers is likely to be quite low, there should be inflows of workers to sectors with labour scarcities and this should help ease labour shortages in tight sectors. A pick-up in inward migration, however, creates pressures in other parts of the economy.