2.4% of job postings for Ireland now explicitly state that applicants do not need to be able to speak English.
The new study by Indeed, based on data from its job sharing platform, is a snapshot of employer's behaviour in using language flexibility to widen its pool of candidates.
The majority of roles advertised are mainly lower paid roles in high demand areas including Hospitality and Tourism, and Driving.
The research comes as employers here are increasingly seeking to hire migrant workers amid labour shortages.
The category with the highest share of such postings is Cleaning & Sanitation, where more than one in 10 employers include this information for would-be applicants.
This is followed by Beauty & Wellness at 8% and Construction, where labour shortages have been well documented, at 7.2%.
According to the research, Ireland lags behind other European countries in the willingness of employers to hire workers without local language skills.
The Netherlands has the largest share of postings that do not require knowledge of Dutch (7.8%), followed by Spain (5.8% ) where Spanish is not necessary.
For Italy and France, the share of their respective main official languages is around 4%, while Germany is at 2.7%. The UK is also at 2.7%.
Jack Kennedy, Senior Economist at Indeed, commented: "Language requirement shares reflect deep trends in labour markets that are important to understanding migration.
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"Employers in Ireland may be using flexibility with English language skills as a signal for their willingness to hire foreign workers.
Unemployment in Ireland has been below 5% since February 2022 and finding staff, particularly in certain categories including those with low-paid roles, can be difficult for employers, according to Mr Kennedy.
"In cases where it is possible for an employee to do a job well without having a proficiency in English, being flexible on language requirements may assist with recruitment given the relatively low number of such job postings," he stated.
This new analysis is based on data collected by Indeed for the 12 months to August 2024.
The platform began prompting employers about this type of language flexibility in 2022 in an effort to help the more than 6 million Ukrainian refugees following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
As part of the analysis, researchers focused on job postings where employers were exposed to the prompt.
The Department of Taoiseach recently said that 2.7 million people are working in Ireland and half a million or one in five are non-Irish citizens.
The briefing note said that as Ireland is at full employment, many services and sectors are finding it difficult to fill jobs and find staff.
It added that migrants are "particularly important" in the construction, retail & hospitality and healthcare sectors.
"Migrants moving to Ireland to work with limited English are likely to be able to learn more of the language as they work and live in the country," said Mr Kennedy.
"At the same time, they are helping to ensure there are thriving workforces in sectors that require foreign workers to meet demand," he said.
"In future years, generative artificial intelligence tools that demonstrate strong language and translation abilities may enable more non-native-language speakers to contribute more productively in more roles," he added.
