Unemployment Reaches 6.3%

[pino]

As has already made news today unemployment rose to 6.3%, 9,400 more people signed on in the month of September.

The more shocking figure is that the live register in the last 12 months has risen by 49.5%, that is 80,000 people, just to give people something to visualise that figure, Croke Park on All Ireland Final day.

It is the highest level of unemployment since Dec 1998.

The worst is that you are dealing with "adjusted" figures (see http://www.politics.ie/economy/35444...ml#post1227042) so is likely the closest (acceptable to the government) figure to the real one, obviously not taking into account the people not registered because were contractors (self employed) so they are not entitled to any help.

Anyway, IMHO at this stage any prediction is totally arbitrary as the country is in the middle of a very sensitive situation, so an educated guess about the real trend is not possible right now.

These are the main not predictable factors that will decide the future:

• Settlement on a revision of the Lisbon treaty
  
  • Will be introduced in the next 3 years the EU Corp. Tax Agency?
  • Will next year be imposed a strict quota on Irish meat production?
  • and more... ...
• Settlement of the Corp. Tax
  
  • Will the processus of corp. tax harmonization be started from the North-South joint authority?
• Settlement of the Irish wages issue
  
  • Will the Irish workers agree to freeze their wages for no less than three years?

There is more, but the above issues can make a lot of companies run away in a blink in the next three years, that's why any prediction in this "status quo" is impossible. We should consolidate an Irieland based economy to be on the safe side, but I see that will not be the case.

[SJL4277]

The reason why unemployment will rise if there is emigration is simple, if your workforce is for exmaple 100,000 and you have 5% unemployment, it means that 5,000 people are unemployed, if the level of unemployment continues to rise and emigration starts to take place and the amount the same amount of people are on the live register 5,000 and there is 10% emigration then your workforce will be 90,000 you wil now have 5.5% unemployment, even if the actual amount of people on the live register remains stagnant.

Right, whatever about your forecasts and mine, I'm not an economist and I assume you aren't either, but that paragraph does not make sense. If 10,000 employed people emigrated it would have a negative impact on aggregate demand but many of the jobs they left would be filled by those on the live register.
Our minimum wage is similar to a good few EU countries by the way, and utility costs may be high and transport relatively bad but we're the only tax haven in the EU-15.

[pino]

{...snip...}
Our minimum wage is similar to a good few EU countries by the way, and utility costs may be high and transport relatively bad but we're the only tax haven in the EU-15.

Well, Ireland is no more a tax heaven. The wages raised too much to fit the money hunger, so now Ireland it's just "interesting" because between the very slight margin tax/wages and the few remaining industrial grants some small company can still decide to come here, but it's impredictable how many (mostly manifactures) will run away.

Don't forget that Ireland is now a EU Net Contributor (meaning: we pay more than we get) so we can't spread grants anymore. The grants now come mostly from the taxpayers' wallets and the State's Budget cannot afford that anymore. This situation, added to the EU interactions (see my other post) and given that the EU money now goes to the new EU countries (and that's fair), puts the Irish economic future in a grey area where no educated guess is possible.

[Johnny Bluestar]

Anyway, IMHO at this stage any prediction is totally arbitrary as the country is in the middle of a very sensitive situation, so an educated guess about the real trend is not possible right now.

Given the action taken by the Irish government re the Banking garauntee, I think it is safe to assume that any actions that might piss off our EU partners will not be taken into consideration.

It would seem that the government will put Irelands economy before the EU position on anything.

As a commited Europhile this should irratate me but it does'nt. Indeed it shows me that the people in charge of the economy are not afraid to rufflle a few feathers in europe.

I wonder will they show the same steel when it comes to ruffling public sector feathers?????

They are going to have to cut deep. If they hold their nerve they might even get re-elected in 4 years time.