Strong evidence of a brain drain has emerged from a survey of Irish graduates showing new entrants to healthcare and teaching are especially likely to emigrate.
Almost one in four graduates from honours degree programmes last year who found employment were working overseas compared to just one in 10 in 2008, according to the Higher Education Authority (HEA) report.
The information is based on surveys from the seven universities and six teacher training colleges of the first destination of their graduates, nine months after leaving college.
Stable employment
The overall pattern is of a relatively stable employment rate among level 8 (honours bachelor degree) graduates – 51 per cent in 2013, down from 52 per cent in 2012 – but increasingly this is propped up by emigration.
The proportion of level 8 graduates going overseas to work has more than doubled from 5 per cent in 2008 to 12 per cent last year.
In the same period the proportion in employment in the State dropped from 45 per cent to 39 per cent.
The pattern is similar among graduates with masters and doctorates. The employment rate of such graduates in the State fell from 61 per cent in 2012 to 58 per cent last year, while the employment rate overseas rose from 11 per cent to 15 per cent.
Migratory trend
The report
What do Graduates Do? The Class of 2013
says it was unclear whether this migratory trend was driven “by choice or out of necessity”.
The top five overseas destinations for level 8 graduates were the UK, the US, Australia, United Arab Emirates and Germany. For masters and doctorate graduates who were employed overseas, China made the top five list in place of UAE.
The ratio of domestic employment to overseas employment among new graduates is now at mid-1990s levels.
In the equivalent survey from 1992, one in four graduates in employment had gained their first work opportunity through emigration. In 1987, the ratio was as high as four in ten.
The latest study, which was based on a 69 per cent response rate from surveyed graduates last year, also showed a marginal increase in starting salaries.
