This is a silver lining to the crisis, but will it be enough for us to boost our exports attract more investment (i.e. jobs)and enable us to begin to move out of the mire?

5 years on from the onset of this country’s economic crisis, it is difficult to know whether or not we’ve hit rock bottom or not. I think if people knew that all this pain of austerity was bringing us closer to turning things around then there might be more buy in from the citizens of this country. What NWL cannot analyse (nor can anyone else) is the level of the erosion of trust between the ordinary punter and the politicians of this country.

The inept handling of the Celtic Tiger and the failure to deal with the resulting downturn has shattered public trust in the politicians who are tasked with creating the environment to get this country back up off it’s knees.
It might be too much to expect but given the dire circumstances that Ireland faces there seems to be no sense of any social solidarity forcing politicians to do the right thing.

I thought that this current crisis would have seen more social cohesion to force the issue with the country’s politicians.
Of course the politicians will continue to do what is (politically) expedient, rather than doing what is right for the country and it’s people.

I would suggest that there is a degree of job replacement, e.g we are losing low paid retail/distribution jobs, but are gaining higher paid jobs, particularly in the FDI sector. BeeCeeTee above is correct in that many are within the one sector.

There is a serious shortage of skilled & qualified workers in a range of occupations and pay rates within those trades are increasing.

However there are awful lot more jobs to go in the retail/distribution sector. Again much of those job losses are down to general changes – take a look at the book trade or the travel industry. Clothing retailers such as Asos are also moving much of the retail trade to the internet.

In relation to retail sales, much of the past growth was funded by equity extraction and was never going to be sustained. The Bank of England has for many years published stats on the level of equity withdrawal from housing however the Irish Central Bank has never done so.

I take your point regarding that there is a time lag between job announcements and actual hiring. However construction and fit out does take time.

However almost all of the FDI job announcements have been service led. While wages and salaries may be very good, there is a low level of capital investment required. Most are run from leasehold premises. The interesting one is Intel. The company has not officially confirmed (per its website) the re-investment in Leixlip, despite the media stories. I can only imagine they are awaiting for a certain referendum result before any final commitment. There is a major difference in spending a few million on a fit out for a software operation and perhaps a thousand times more on a new chip fabrication unit.

In conclusion I think there is some serious changes in the economy. However those without the necessary skills and qualifications are unfortunately in serious trouble.