Employment drops below 2 million

29 Jun 2009

Today the Central Statistics Office (CSO) released the latest Quarterly National Household Survey. "What is striking about today's release," noted Bríd O'Brien, INOU Head of Policy and Media, "is the drop in employment below the 2 million mark and the increase in long-term unemployment to 2.2%".

Employment now stands at 1.97m, which brings employment back to mid 2005 levels. 2005 is the year when, to quote the International Monetary Fund, there was "a burst of activity in the construction and financial intermediation sectors" which led to an 'output gap' or bubble. Given the challenges facing Ireland in addressing the consequences of this bubble, employment levels will regrettably fall even further over the coming quarters.

The last time the long-term unemployment rate was at 2.2% is mid 1999. At that stage there were 38,000 people long-term unemployed, there are now 49,100 people long-term unemployed. Overall unemployment stands at 222,800 an increase of 103% on Quarter 1 2008. The unemployment rate is now 10.2%, it was 'only' 4.9% in Q1 2008.

"Given the forecasts of unemployment rising to 15% in 2010, when are the Government going to start treating this crisis with the same level of seriousness with which they have been treating the banking crisis," demanded Bríd. "As a small open economy we are very reliant on what goes on in the rest of the world but we cannot continue to hope that an international upturn will solve our unemployment crisis," she continued. To that end we urgently need more targeted action now to not only maintain jobs but to start creating them and to identify areas of economic activity Ireland can develop an expertise in.

 

For further information contact:
Bríd O'Brien, INOU Head of Policy and Media: (01) 856 0088 or 086 608 9641

 

Note to editors

The CSO have changed the time period they cover in their quarterly reports from a seasonal basis to a calendar one. The main reason for this changed is to bring Ireland into line with other European countries so that Labour Force Surveys across Europe are comparable. So today's release covers the first quarter of 2009 which includes the months of January, February and March. Previously Quarter 1 would have included December 2008: that month is now included in the new Quarter 4 for 2008.