Employment
Ireland enjoyed very high employment rates until the start of 2008 when the economic down turn started. In 2007 over 2.1 million people were employed in Ireland and at one stage 16% of the work force was foreign born. The unemployment rate had hovered around 4.5% or 150 Thousands for a number of years which is full employment. Emigrants had met the need for extra labour coming from all over the world. Up until 2001 employment was driven by exports however in the last number of years it has been driven by domestic consumption particularly construction. As domestic economy collapsed so did the jobs it supported i.e. wholesale, retail and construction. Accommodation and agriculture were also effected.
Source cso
What we can clearly see from the graph above is the collapse of the domestic consumption economy. Firstly the construction turned followed closely by administrative and support services then retail and finally agriculture .What is astonishing from the above graph is that the government and public sector carried on increasing their work force in health ,social work and education for a further 3 years.
On the positive side the excessive supply of labour will increase our competitiveness driving down prices. Whilst the collapse of sectors such as construction, Banking, Tourism and the massive over staffing levels in the public sector will encourage our new students to study in computers, sciences and languages where there is real job prospects and growth. This will reduce wage levels in the high tech sector encouraging investors.
In the year 2000 Ireland had one of the lowest levels of unemployment in the OECD by May 2010 we had the second highest only second to Spain. The unemployment rate had increased by 300% from 150,000 to 450,000 today. One of the most worrying things about the figures available is that the highest rates of unemployment are amongst the poorly educated. Our continued loss of competitiveness means that any new jobs that are created by foreign direct investment will high tech requiring well educated staff.
Source NCC REPORT
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