Young Professionals Flee Dublin, but That’s Not Enough
Sinead Ellen Griffin, a 33 year old young professional, went through a separation 4 years ago, and, unable to find accommodation she could afford, she left Dublin and moved back to her parents house in the tiny coastal town of Waterford.
Her idea was to stay there just for a few months, but now she is considering emigrating all the way out of Ireland.
“The reason I’m really considering emigration is because I want to have some resemblance of a personal and family life. I don’t want to wake up one day in my forties, perhaps, and still in my childhood bedroom, without having had the chance to enjoy what I wanted from life”, she explains.
Sinead Griffin’s situation is just one of many similar cases of Irish millennials who were too young to buy a home during the global financial crisis of 2008 when prices were down, and now have virtually no hopes of fulfilling the Irish Central Bank’s downpayment and loan-to-income requirements for buying.
Housing Crisis is Hard for Irish Businesses Looking for Talent
Mrs Griffin might solve her problems by emigrating to Canada, Australia, or another European country, but Irish businesses will lose one more potential employee due to the continued housing crisis.
Cork City-registered tech company ENV Media is one of many locally-based enterprises facing such difficulties with their recruitment needs. The company is currently expanding in the Brazilian and other major Latin and North America markets with their 7JP.com brand and the urgency to find the required talent is acute.
To find a way around this pressing situation, ENV has adopted a vision for a full work from home (WFH) mode of operation, taking advantage of the rapid development of digital collaboration tools, IT security systems and cloud-enabled work.
While not directly solving the housing problems of job seekers, WFH allows professionals to keep their nice job working from whatever accommodation solution they have found or think works best for them, as they don’t have to be in Cork, or Dublin, or Ireland at all.
The added flexibility inherent to such work-from-wherever job arrangements make subsequent changes of “home” locations in Ireland or abroad, or even a true digital nomad lifestyle if one so desires.
Work From Home Benefits both Sides
The full work from home strategy adopted by ENV Media is aimed to help the tech company attract the fresh recruits needed for the undergoing market expansion despite Ireland’s housing crisis. This approach is also cost beneficial both for businesses and workers, and saves a lot of time for the latter.
Detailed look into the top benefits of WFH from the point of view of employees is given in the 2023 State of Remote Work report by Buffer, Nomad List and Remote OK, based on a survey among 3,000 remote workers from the whole world.
In 2022, 97% of respondents said they would like to continue to work remotely, at least some of the time, for the rest of their career, and in 2023 these answers increased to 98%.
The high degree of flexibility provided by work from home arrangements is the most desired aspect; for 22% of workers it is the flexibility of their work and free time, for 19% it is the flexibility to live anywhere around the world as long as there is stable enough internet, and for 13% it is the flexibility to choose their most comfortable “home office” location.
Other benefits mentioned by respondents include the saved time from skipping commuting to work (12%), better financials (11%), and 8% say they appreciate being able to focus better on their work tasks.
Photo by Vika Strawberrika on Unsplash
