[caption id="attachment_68959" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="The Working Abroad Expo held in Dublin in March, 2011."]
The number of Irish people leaving the island to set up a new life in the United States and elsewhere is on the rise, new figures have shown.
With the Irish economy still on life-support after a crippling couple of years, a rising number people are upping sticks and relocating overseas, with the traditional "big six" emigrant destinations welcoming them: the U.S., Canada, Britain, Germany, Australia and New Zealand.
The latest figures, which focus on 2010 and part of 2011, show that America attracted 14,288 Irish people seeking work, with 1,500 of them becoming permanent U.S. residents. The overall total of people heading for the U.S. was up seven percent on the previous year.
The most popular destinations for arrivals in the U.S. remain the traditional hub states of New York and Massachusetts, but California is also proving an attractive lure.
Meanwhile, closer to the point of departure, Britain absorbed over 16,000 Irish leaving the Emerald Isle to relocate in the next door country - a figure that was up a whopping 56 percent in 2010/11 when compared to the 12 previous months.
During 2011 it is understood that an average of 300 Irish people per week were seeking British National Insurance numbers, so allowing them to work and pay tax.
A life "down under" is also proving an inviting proposition for recession-weary Irish, with Australian immigration figures showing that 27,995 arrived in the country in the 2010/11 tax year. In the last 12 months, over 3000 Irish became permanent residents in Australia.
New Zealand, meanwhile, has seen three times more Irish obtaining work permits than a decade ago, while Canada saw 4,000 Irish apply for work in the first six months of 2011.
In Germany, one of the sturdier economies in the increasingly frail eurozone, Irish arrivals are believed to be up by 16 percent in the year just gone.
Not since the Famine has Ireland seen so many leave its shores in such a short space of time, and Taoiseach Enda Kenny recently said he "regretted" the loss of so many young people, whose families noticed their absence at Christmas time in particular.
"My preference, obviously, is to have a situation where they can have jobs and careers here, but young people always want to be where the action is," he said.
