More than a fifth of Irish people are considering moving abroad to secure better job prospects, according a Eurobarometer survey on labour mobility.
Perhaps unsurprisingly given the protracted nature of downturn here, the study found more than a third of Irish people felt employment prospects were significantly better abroad.
However, Irish people were among the least willing in Europe to move country to find work, the research found, with only 36 per cent expressing a willingness to move country or region if they lost their job and were unable to find another one.
This contrasts sharply with the 66 per cent of people in France, Sweden and Cyprus who said they would move to find work.
As a destination for migration, Ireland was only favoured by 4 per cent of respondents, in contrast with other English-speaking countries like the USA (21 per cent), the UK (16 per cent) and Australia (15 per cent).
The survey found job mobility levels were higher among people from Scandinavia and the three Baltic states, where respondents were more likely to say they would move abroad in the future.
The figures showed 51 per cent of Danes, 38 per cent of Estonians and 37 per cent of Swedes expected to move in the future to exploit greater economic prospects.
Some 21 per cent of the Irish respondents said they had previously lived or worked abroad, ranking the Irish second in Europe when it came to the experience of living abroad, securing our reputation as migrants.
The data showed 10 per cent of Europeans have lived and worked in another country at some point in the past, whether in the EU or beyond.
Martin Territt, director of the European Commission Representation in Ireland, said finding ways of improving job mobility across Europe is key to our future economic success.
"Europeans need to feel comfortable that they have the right skills sets as well as social support to go out to where the jobs that best match their profiles are. This is after all what makes the USA such a dynamic economy,” he said. “For this to happen our grasp of European languages needs to improve and younger people need to take advantage of study and training opportunities abroad."
According to the latest Eurostat data, 2.3 per cent of EU citizens (11.3 million people) reside in a member state other than their own. This number has grown by more than 54 per cent (or 4 million) since 2001. This represents 37% of all non-nationals resident in the EU, the rest being nationals of non-EU countries.
Separately, the Economic and Social Research Institute has warned 120,000 people could leave Ireland over this year and next as a result of the downturn.
