Google struggles to find graduates to fill its European headquarters in Ireland

Google has admitted to difficulties in finding graduates with enough maths and science skills to work at its European headquarters in Dublin, as Ireland struggles to cope with the boom in its IT industry.

The Sunday Business Post reported that the problem had been raised by Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt at a meeting with the Irish cabinet last week.

Schmidt reportedly said that Ireland needs to ease visa restrictions to allow more foreigners to take up positions at Google.

Meanwhile, Intel Ireland chief Eamonn Sinnott was reported to have said at an Intel Open Forum on Education that the country's school system needs to be transformed if Ireland wants to get enough high-tech graduates out of college.

The Irish government has made previous efforts to upskill the labour force in IT, and announced 1,500 free undergraduate places in 2009 for students wishing to study science, engineering and IT subjects.

However, government efforts have not been enough to stem the problem, and the skills shortage is only likely to worsen as growing numbers of companies set up bases in Ireland attracted by large tax breaks.

In addition to Google, multinationals such as EMC and Amazon have built datacentres in Ireland to serve the UK and parts of Europe.

EMC has opened a European research centre in Cork and IBM is running multiple operations in the country, including its European sales and services support centres.

The situation at first sight does not appear much better next door in Northern Ireland.

A recent ICT snapshot from e-skills UK found that nearly one in five IT companies in the region anticipate that recruitment over the next six months will be difficult mainly due to a lack of skills, qualifications and experience among applicants.

However, other research from e-skills UK in March found that employment in the IT industry in Northern Ireland is set to grow at nine times the UK national average during the next five years.

"With high levels of unemployment across the economy, this research shows that IT and telecoms in Northern Ireland is one sector of the economy where employment is growing at an impressive rate, with an immediate need for new entrants into the workforce to keep up with the demand," said Karen Price, e-skills UK chief executive.

"We must continue to work closely with industry, education and government to ensure that Northern Ireland has the technology skills it needs, now and in the future, to ensure growth and productivity across the whole economy."