Which ethnic group is receiving more employment at the Concord corporation in Lyddie?

There are many new Irish girls working at the factory.

Lyddie takes the job at the factory when she loses her job at the pub.  She values the job because she desperately needs money for her family, and because she is good at it.  This is why she does not want to take part in the campaign for the ten-hour work day.  Lyddie does not want to make waves.

The factory continues to speed things up, and gives Lyddie more and more machines.  She gets hurt, and gets sick, but Lyddie keeps going.  Her job is very important to her and she is very good at it.  However, many girls have quit.  Just about anyone who can quit does.

The slack is taken up by an influx of Irish girls.  Lyddie is assigned one, Brigid, and teaches her the basics.  Lyddie gets frustrated by having a trainee, but Diana helps out because she is more patient.

As always, many of the New England operatives had gone home. Brigid took on her third loom. More Irish girls came on as spare hands, some of the machines simply stood idle. (Ch. 20)

Brigid may not be as fast a learner as Lyddie would like, but as one of the first Irish girls to come to the factory she becomes the leader and role model for the new ones, especially after Diana leaves to have her baby.

Between them, she and Brigid coached several of the new spare hands, all of them wearing far too much clothing in the suffocating heat. …  Lyddie let it be. She hadn't managed to persuade Brigid to take off her silly capes, how could she expect to persuade the new girls? (Ch. 20)

Lyddie tries to help the Irish girls, but she is not particularly sympathetic to foreigners.  Although Lyddie is not a mean person, she is rather self-centered.  Her focus is on her family, and she does not have much left over for others.  As time goes on, Lyddie becomes more compassionate, especially after Rachel leaves and she has no more family to look out for anymore.

During the Industrial Revolution, there was a great influx of Irish immigrants due to famine in Ireland.  The Irish Potato Famine hit in the middle of the nineteenth century, and many Irish immigrants came to American in search of a better life.  Often they ended up working in the factories, especially young women.  They had no choice.