Work and the Diaspora: Locating Irish Workers in the British Labour Market

Irish migrant workers still make a significant contribution to the UK labour force, but this contribution is confined to particular occupation and industry groups. This paper begins with a brief review of the literature on Irish workers employment and an argument is developed that the work of Irish-born people in Britain is still both racialised and gendered. Then, using data from the UK Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS), the work experiences of over one thousand Irish-born people in the UK are explored. The findings suggest that Irish-born men and women still work in the stereotyped occupations of the past. For example, most women work in public administration and health while twenty six per cent of men work in construction. The majority of Irish-born men work in manual skilled or unskilled jobs. The paper concludes that there has been no real qualitative change in the way that Irish-born workers experience employment in the UK.