A RECRUITMENT campaign aimed at persuading UK based Irish construction workers back to Ireland is raising fears of a skills shortage among British companies.
The Construction Industry Federation has set up a London telephone hotline, backed by newspaper advertisements, to meet the demand for skilled labour. The industry is trying to encourage 5,000 workers to return to Ireland, where the construction sector is growing at about 6 per cent a year in response to economic growth of 7 per cent a year since 1994.
The campaign, launched in Irish newspapers in mid December, was aimed initially at Irish workers going home for Christmas. Mr Peter McCabe, a director of the federation, said, advertisements in the Irish press had prompted almost 700 responses from holidaying emigrants. Since then, the federation says, it has had a further 1,500 calls to the hotline.
The Irish construction industry employs about 87,000 people, up from 74,000 four years ago. The federation forecasts employment of 95,000 next year - still small compared with the UK, where the industry employs about 1.4m people.
The UK Building Employers Confederation said it believed the Irish industry would find it difficult to persuade large numbers of emigrants to return. But even a modest success could cause shortages as the UK industry gears up for forecast growth of about 3 per cent a year for the next three years.