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Britian back in recession
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That’s hardly what I was implying – I merely used shop vacancies as an example of positions that can’t be outsourced.
But anyway, that’s not the key issue. The key issue for Ireland is that a large proportion of unemployed people in Ireland were working directly or indirectly in the construction industry. Those jobs are never coming back and the skills acquired by those who worked in Ireland’s construction boom are largely non-transferrable. So, getting those people off the dole has less to do with creating positions for them and more to do with them re-training to do something else. Either that or they move to where the construction jobs are. Personally, I think a lot of those people are going to remain unemployed for the rest (or at least most) of their lives. That is, without question, Ireland’s biggest socio-economic challenge.
Ireland hasn’t turned its back on manufacturing at all. Quite the opposite in fact: Ireland has a well-established high-end manufacturing industry (computer hardware, medical devices, pharmaceuticals and food products being the main exports). What’s more, many companies within those industries are trying to expand, but they’re struggling to get the necessary staff:
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2011/0702/1224299938422.html
1.6 million jobs were created in the US alone last year:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16445441
There are plenty of jobs being created in the UK & Ireland too, the problem is the mismatch between the skills required for those jobs and those of the unemployed.
Is it? You don’t think third-level graduates turning up their noses at jobs they feel are below them could even be a factor?
1.6million jobs were created, but how many were lost? For instance, when Tesco move into a town we hear about the jobs created, but we don't hear about the small shops closing.
I've heard of graduates applying for jobs in McDonalds, so I'm not sure you are right on that one.0 -
For anyone whose interested here's a talk from TED by a guy called Ken Robinson. The gist of the speech is that schools kill creativity. In trying to preparing people for a job they think the pupil can get, as opposed to preparing them to be in it for themselves at whatever they want to do, leave them ill prepared to get any job at all. He also talks about educational inflation (You're gonna need a masters to do the same job a bachelors required in a couple of years) but I think that's another topic.
I don't think you can blame the young people for this. The Economist recently had a piece on third level education in the US which showed that the college courses studied by students today, though of a much wider variety, don't differ to much in discipline from what they did in the 60s. But the problem of youth unemployment is prevalent there too.
In Ireland as the former head of DCU (Ferdinand von Pronsy....brainfart) now in Aberdeen once said that many Irish students were conservative in their choice of study often opting for the professions instead of science or humanities in what he thought was a kind of snobbery. To be fair though given how well protected / guaranteed these incomes can be it's a smart choice on the face of it.
The farce that was FAS is now gone. But it has a nasty legacy. The practice of sending tradesmen from A to study in Z and paying them discourages intellectual rigour and FAS did it on a massive scale. This was worse than lowering educational standards, and IMO fed back into secondary schools. The prospect of getting paid to study for a diploma skews peoples decision making, against payless further, more, difficult education.
Vested interests and overly protected sectors of the economy have the same affect. The difference between and the unemployed youth is that they are on the inside while the youth are on the outside.
I don't think that we neglected manufacturing, in fact I think it's the opposite, we geared our education system towards it, particularly construction. In the future I don't think our workforce will be composed of as many salarymen, people will migrate from one profession to another. Of course for that to happen RELEVANT training must be more widely available(NOT IN THE MOULD OF FAS).0 -
For anyone whose interested here's a talk from TED by a guy called Ken Robinson. The gist of the speech is that schools kill creativity. In trying to preparing people for a job they think the pupil can get, as opposed to preparing them to be in it for themselves at whatever they want to do, leave them ill prepared to get any job at all. He also talks about educational inflation (You're gonna need a masters to do the same job a bachelors required in a couple of years) but I think that's another topic.
I don't think you can blame the young people for this. The Economist recently had a piece on third level education in the US which showed that the college courses studied by students today, though of a much wider variety, don't differ to much in discipline from what they did in the 60s. But the problem of youth unemployment is prevalent there too.
In Ireland as the former head of DCU (Ferdinand von Pronsy....brainfart) now in Aberdeen once said that many Irish students were conservative in their choice of study often opting for the professions instead of science or humanities in what he thought was a kind of snobbery. To be fair though given how well protected / guaranteed these incomes can be it's a smart choice on the face of it.
The farce that was FAS is now gone. But it has a nasty legacy. The practice of sending tradesmen from A to study in Z and paying them discourages intellectual rigour and FAS did it on a massive scale. This was worse than lowering educational standards, and IMO fed back into secondary schools. The prospect of getting paid to study for a diploma skews peoples decision making, against payless further, more, difficult education.
Vested interests and overly protected sectors of the economy have the same affect. The difference between and the unemployed youth is that they are on the inside while the youth are on the outside.
I don't think that we neglected manufacturing, in fact I think it's the opposite, we geared our education system towards it, particularly construction. In the future I don't think our workforce will be composed of as many salarymen, people will migrate from one profession to another. Of course for that to happen RELEVANT training must be more widely available(NOT IN THE MOULD OF FAS).
Our last government got completely carried away, the smart economy was to take over from manufacturing as we moved up the food chain. Only problem is: we're still waiting for the smart economy!0 -
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Only problem is: we're still waiting for the smart economy!
The smart economy is doing OK, people are choosing not to enter it.0 -
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I don't think that we neglected manufacturing, in fact I think it's the opposite, we geared our education system towards it, particularly construction.0
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1.6million jobs were created, but how many were lost?I've heard of graduates applying for jobs in McDonalds...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kvh6yPnbYBo
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/eccbcf66-46ab-11e1-85e2-00144feabdc0.htmlOur last government got completely carried away, the smart economy was to take over from manufacturing as we moved up the food chain. Only problem is: we're still waiting for the smart economy!
Google, Facebook, Paypal, Betfair, Intel, Analog Devices, Boston Scientific, Abbot Diagnostics, Pfizer, IBM, Ericsson, Siemens, Oracle, Cisco, Citrix, Quintiles...
Who else are you waiting for?0 -
Manufacturing and construction are two very different things, but I’d be very interested to hear how the Irish education system was geared towards construction?
A big chunk of construction unemployment relates to the hundred's of thousands of mostly eastern european workers who came here during the boom because smarts like IBEC were calling for at least 40,000 immigrants to come here annually to keep the 'Celtic Tiger Dream Alive. A significant majority of these workers ended up in construction because of the unbelievable wages that were going, building houses/appartments/shopping centres that nobody needed. When the recession hit all of these jobs went and there was nowhere to go to get another job but the dole. It will take alot time for the economy to absorb the massive numbers of people who came into this country during the boom to work in jobs that simply no longer exist.0 -
I don’t know, but unemployment in the US is declining. And besides, that wasn’t really my point – a job created does not necessarily equate to a job lost, as they may be in completely different fields. This is precisely what is happening in Ireland – lots of jobs in construction have been lost, but jobs in high-end manufacturing and software development are being created. If people are found to fill those jobs, more jobs will be created still.
Yeah, I heard that one too and can’t help but feel it was a McDonalds PR stunt. It just happened to coincide with a massive McDonald’s recruitment drive:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kvh6yPnbYBo
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/eccbcf66-46ab-11e1-85e2-00144feabdc0.html
Off the top of my head...
Google, Facebook, Paypal, Betfair, Intel, Analog Devices, Boston Scientific, Abbot Diagnostics, Pfizer, IBM, Ericsson, Siemens, Oracle, Cisco, Citrix, Quintiles...
Who else are you waiting for?
America has printed money like crazy and their unemployment is still over 8%. They are now $17trillion in debt - I will be expecting a lot of job losses when their debt ceiling is reached. That should tell everybody, that full employment is practically impossible because so many manufacturing jobs have been lost to places like China.
Take Dell, those jobs were of no use to us under the last government, they were too low down the ladder. We needed higher end manufacturing. My point is: the smart economy alone is not enough, we also need the fruit of the looms of this world.0 -
A big chunk of construction unemployment relates to the hundred's of thousands of mostly eastern european workers who came here during the boom
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It will take alot time for the economy to absorb the massive numbers of people who came into this country during the boom to work in jobs that simply no longer exist.0 -
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America has printed money like crazy and their unemployment is still over 8%. They are now $17trillion in debt - I will be expecting a lot of job losses when their debt ceiling is reached.
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Take Dell, those jobs were of no use to us under the last government, they were too low down the ladder. We needed higher end manufacturing. My point is: the smart economy alone is not enough......we also need the fruit of the looms of this world.
Instead of mourning the loss of these jobs and pandering to the Joe Higgins of this world who make nonsense demands about governments "creating jobs", we should be encouraging people to upskill and do something else (and to be fair, a lot of people are, which is very heartening to see). Jobs become obsolete and/or redundant all the time – it’s a part of life. Protectionism is not the answer. Embracing new change and opportunities is. As I said above, not everything can be outsourced to Asia. So rather than trying to win back the jobs that are moving east, Ireland should be asking itself “what can we do that India and China cannot?”0 -
There are only about 26,000 people from the EU15 – EU27 states unemployed in Ireland (as of Q4 2011, down from 28,000 in Q4 2010) – you’re grossly over-stating the scale of that particular problem. I’d be far more concerned about the 256,000 unemployed Irish people.
I wasn't making that point to criticise any particular group. I was simply making the point that during the boom Ireland exeprienced a significant influx of people, many of whom still remain. Given that this occurred shortly before the biggest economic shock this country experienced in quite some time leading to a massive reduction in employment/increase in unemployment it was bound to have an impact on the ability of the economy to create sufficient job for all those looking for them.0 -
I was simply making the point that during the boom Ireland exeprienced a significant influx of people, many of whom still remain. Given that this occurred shortly before the biggest economic shock this country experienced in quite some time leading to a massive reduction in employment/increase in unemployment it was bound to have an impact on the ability of the economy to create sufficient job for all those looking for them.0
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You’re shifting goalposts all over the place here. First you said there are no jobs, now you’re saying there are going to be huge job losses in the US. Initially you said there is no smart economy in Ireland, now you’re saying the smart economy alone is not enough.
Unless people are prepared to pay a premium for European-produced clothing, then those jobs are not coming back any time soon. People want cheap clothes from Penneys and Dunnes, hence manufacturers in India get the contracts to produce them, with whom manufacturers in Europe could not possibly compete.
Instead of mourning the loss of these jobs and pandering to the Joe Higgins of this world who make nonsense demands about governments "creating jobs", we should be encouraging people to upskill and do something else (and to be fair, a lot of people are, which is very heartening to see). Jobs become obsolete and/or redundant all the time – it’s a part of life. Protectionism is not the answer. Embracing new change and opportunities is. As I said above, not everything can be outsourced to Asia. So rather than trying to win back the jobs that are moving east, Ireland should be asking itself “what can we do that India and China cannot?”
I never said there are 'no' jobs. Of course there jobs, but there is not a job for every single young person in this country as you were alluding to.
As regards the smart economy, it was touted as the answer for Ireland, it clearly was never going to the answer by itself. There is no smart economy in many parts of Ireland:
Smart Economy jobs and the Irish Regions: Three quarters of new projects located in Greater Dublin Area
http://www.finfacts.ie/irishfinancenews/article_1022901.shtml0 -
But that assumes the economy remains fixed in size and make-up - it doesn't. People moving into an economy to work create demand for more good and services, creating more jobs.
I'll certainly defer to your expertise here but I would have thought that a large influx of people into Ireland during a boom where a large proportion of these people ended up working in an unsustainable building industry that has since collapsed would have a certain distortionary impact on the labour market.0 -
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...I would have thought that a large influx of people into Ireland during a boom where a large proportion of these people ended up working in an unsustainable building industry that has since collapsed would have a certain distortionary impact on the labour market.
Furthermore, while it’s true that Ireland’s demography has changed substantially over the last 10-15 years, a lot of people who came to Ireland to work in construction have likely left again. As stated above, there are a relatively small number of non-Irish nationals unemployed in Ireland and indeed the number is declining. This makes a lot of sense when you think about it – construction is by nature a transient industry (which a lot of young Irish men seem unwilling to accept, but anyway) and if a guy moves to Ireland to work on a building project, he probably knows that once the project is complete, he may be out of work. When you throw into the mix the fact that there has been a lot of construction work going in the UK, Poland and the Ukraine ahead of the Olympics and the European Championships, for example, it makes little sense to remain unemployed in Ireland with very limited future prospects.0 -
Manufacturing and construction are two very different things, but I’d be very interested to hear how the Irish education system was geared towards construction?
In Ireland Construction is/was(this may have changed) considered part of manufacturing and included in the statistics. One of the reasons productivity was seen to be dropping was that construction is a typically low productivity industry.
I might have gotten carried away there saying that the entire Irish education system was gearded towards constuction. But secondary education includes two subjects in both junior and leaving cert curriculums. None for ICT. Also I think there was something of a self serving belief amongst some in the establishment that if it didn't deliver proper skills in literacy and numeracy it was the students destiny to labour or work in the semi skilled sector.
Post secondary level there's the paid diploma for trades, payment of course doesn't extend to other diplomas in marketing other disciplines. Many professions use the apprenticeship model (accounting, law), but the taught element usually runs concurrent to work and payment is inclusive of study time and exams time off. The only ICT course offered by FAS was the ECDL.
On the last point this is changing thanks to greater involvement by the private sector in training programmes. Previously they were shut out by the govt. who didn't want to start a row with the unions. In the long run we may well have something to thank Rody Molloy for!
Re the smart economy, or economy if you don't like govt. buzzwords, many of the companies offering work are looking for a very specific skillset and are prepared to wait for the perfect candidate. Check the vacanies on offer and a very small amount are for graduates. Most require 2 or more years experience with expertise in x y z etc. My sister went for an interview with Microsoft and the interview process had then different parts. I'm told Googles comprises 5.
I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing that MNCs hire foreign workers to fill vacancies. It would be better for us if they could fill them with Irish people but they can't according to their own rules. Tough! The jobs and capital investment are usually what garners attention but they bring much more in terms of technology and management procedures. Irish management has been considered relatively poor by international standards so this has to be welcomed. How exactly the govt can bridge the experience gap I don't know.
I'm an IT grad myself with 2 yrs exp. under my belt but went travelling for 2 yrs and fell out of the loop and now I have to reskill. I'm not alone in this, as many of the people on my course have ended up like me thru a variety of ways.creedp wrote:...I would have thought that a large influx of people into Ireland during a boom where a large proportion of these people ended up working in an unsustainable building industry that has since ...0 -
In Ireland Construction is/was(this may have changed) considered part of manufacturing and included in the statistics....many of the companies offering work are looking for a very specific skillset and are prepared to wait for the perfect candidate. Check the vacanies on offer and a very small amount are for graduates.
http://www.intel.com/jobs/jobsearch/index_js.htm?Location=200000039&JobCategory=-1Most require 2 or more years experience with expertise in x y z etc.I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing that MNCs hire foreign workers to fill vacancies.0 -
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and a lot of companies accept that they have to invest in graduates.
This is at best partly true. Everyone from chambers of commerce to the IDA laments the lack of certain classes of graduate, but they do little enough to engage with educational institutions to try and improve things. They presume that if jobs are there that people will fill them, but they neglect the critical steps of conveying general information on the opportunities in the sector so that people will choose to study the things that lead to those jobs.
Ireland Inc's performance in this regard is not what it could be.0 -
They presume that if jobs are there that people will fill them, but they neglect the critical steps of conveying general information on the opportunities in the sector so that people will choose to study the things that lead to those jobs.0
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Globalisation is the essence of human nature. We've being practising it for a few thousand years.
Not accroding to this man:
"I don't want to let France dilute itself into globalization, here's the message from the first round," Sarkozy told supporters at a rally in Toulouse. "Europe has let the [idea of] Nation weaken too much."
Sarkozy insisted on the crucial importance of borders at a time when "all borders are being cancelled."0 -
Surely if there's one thing we should learn from the last decade it's that students shouldn't base their CAO choices solely on the current jobs market.
People shouldn't base their CAO choices on a simplistic interpretation of the current jobs market. Jobs come and go, but skills can remain in demand. Taking the example of the civil engineer earlier in the thread, civil engineers are somewhat out of demand, but the broader category applied mathematicians face increasing demand.0 -
People shouldn't base their CAO choices on a simplistic interpretation of the current jobs market. Jobs come and go, but skills can remain in demand. Taking the example of the civil engineer earlier in the thread, civil engineers are somewhat out of demand, but the broader category applied mathematicians face increasing demand.
True, they should also look to things that they like and are good at.0 -
Not accroding to this man:
"I don't want to let France dilute itself into globalization, here's the message from the first round," Sarkozy told supporters at a rally in Toulouse. "Europe has let the [idea of] Nation weaken too much."
Sarkozy insisted on the crucial importance of borders at a time when "all borders are being cancelled."
Well that man is wrong. Sarkozy is a product of globalisation himself.0 -
I disagree. There is broad recognition that a chronic shortage of engineers and computer scientists exists in the world (Germany, the engineering powerhouse of the world, has a massive shortage) and a lot of companies accept that they have to invest in graduates. For example, Intel have a number of intern and graduate positions advertised at present:
http://www.intel.com/jobs/jobsearch/index_js.htm?Location=200000039&JobCategory=-1
]Job specs are not set in stone. It’s very likely that most applicants for a position are not going to tick all the boxes. ....
The German problem is as much a symptom of an ageing population as anything else. Though there's probably a wider problem in Europe as a whole.
The majority of vacancies are still for non grads with experience, lookfor your self. Maybe I'm not in a position to be picky but I won't do an internship. It's a basic principle, you work your week and get paid at the end of it, it disgusts me that any comapny thinks it's entitled to free labour. Indeed I've yet to come across any press release citing research that shows how internships create work. Never found David Letterman attractive and I've no ambition to smoke cigars that've been up my arse so I think I'll skip them.
I'm not some left wing nut, but you can't trade on your brand like that and expect everyone to come running! Everything for me, paid for by everyone else... Liberty, equality, interns!
Increaseingly the announcements on skills shortages are surrounding the lack of suitable candiates. One pharma company demands at least 2 references minimum(it can be for shop assistant or whatever). It's an employers market out there and they are prepared to wait, google won't hire everyone!0
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