The attraction of a yearlong Australian working visa to Irish people in their 20s is obvious to anyone who has watched the television series The Craic Down Under - fun, sun and plenty of partying.
According to Ms Judith Hurditch, manager of the visa office in the Australian embassy in Dublin, the vast majority of applicants say they intend taking on casual work in bars, restaurants, etc.
Many Irish people, however, travel to Australia and continue their office existences instead of becoming surfies or beach bums. A number of recruitment agencies are advertising IT, accounting and office-based professional employment in Australia in national newspapers here.
Recruitment company Hays International has a network, called Auslink, between Ireland and Australia. Primarily for skilled staff, it arranges employment for Irish people travelling to Australia on a 12-month working visa. Ms Letrecia Tippett, business manager for Hays accountancy personnel division, says the company has seen a need for this service over the past few years. "If somebody has the relevant visa requirements to enable them to work in Australia, we can actually set up interviews for them, and often arrange temporary assignments and positions before they arrive."
In the present economic climate, Irish employers may be dismayed to hear that approximately 1,000 Irish people will leave for Australia every month. Australian employers embrace the exodus as they are going though a similar skills shortage.
Joslin Rowe, a company specialising in the recruitment of professionals and support staff into all areas of the financial sector, channels job-seeking visa-holders between the two countries and has been arranging temporary Australian employment for Irish people since July.
"We are able to offer them the opportunity to come and meet us in our office in Dublin and to have an interview and begin the recruitment process before they've even moved out of Dublin. They find out what the market is like in Sydney," says a Joslin Rowe spokeswoman.
They can get information about salaries, and decide whether such a move is a feasible option and whether the experience they have gained is going to be of value in the Australian market. "If anyone has experience in the financial sector, say if they have worked in the IFSC, then it is highly likely that they will be able to find temporary work in the Australian market," she says.
TMP Worldwide held a seminar in Dublin recently for people going to work in Australia. Candidate managers for the company's global gateways team assist candidates in finding work when they arrive in Australia.
According to Ms Jane Barnes, international candidate manager with TMP Worldwide Global Gateway, 60 per cent of the people who attended the seminar have definite plans to leave for Australia in the next four months, with 40 per cent not yet having booked their tickets. Since the gateway was set up in April, it has referred 500 candidates to their Australian offices, 75 per cent of which are placed in contracts.
Ms Barnes says Australian companies are embracing it and that contracts work well in the banking and IT sectors.
She believes more people seem to be interested in carrying on their profession in Australia as opposed to undertaking casual work. "You have to be really careful with the visa restrictions, in that you are not allowed to take on a role that is going to further your career; however you can take on a role equivalent to what you are already doing here. I think that, generally, people want to travel and see a bit of the world, but at the same time continue what they've chosen to do as their career." The visa office at the Australian embassy in Dublin has seen a slight slowing in the application rate for working visas recently but Ms Hurditch says that is normal at this time of year.
The fact that it did not happen last year is put down largely to Millennium celebrations and the Sydney Olympics. Just over 700 one-year working visas were granted in October and 900 were granted in September.
The indications on visa application forms, Ms Hurditch explains, are that people really are going for a holiday, generally speaking. "They really only intend working to get a bit of money together to enable that holiday to happen." Ms Hurditch believes a lot of working visa holders don't realise they can work in their current occupation until they get to Australia and so write "casual work" on the application form.
"This could be because they think they have to say that to get the visa. Many people think they can't work in their occupation, I think because that's one of the requirements of one of the American visas. So people may be thinking that they're not allowed to say that they are going to work in their own area." However, the ones that the visa office sees coming back because they've now decided to emigrate have almost exclusively worked in their own trade. She lists engineers, accountants, IT specialists and nurses in particular.
"All those sorts of people, generally speaking, when we see their application for emigration, their working holiday experience is that they have worked at whatever their trade or profession is."
Because of the limit of three months per job, Ms Hurditch says working through a recruitment agency can be productive in finding work on an ongoing basis. She says there was a time when, if a person worked for the one employment agency "that was constituted as working more than three months at a time with one employer. But I think that has gone by the board now, as more and more people are using agencies to find work - as long as they change actual jobs every three months."
