Unemployment rises to 13.1% (QNHS)

gurramok

http://www.cso.ie/releasespublications/documents/labour_market/current/qnhs.pdf (http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2010/0324/breaking34.html )

That shoots down those on this forum who said unemployment had 'stabilised' since last summer. It also torpedoes the Govt line on stabilisation also.

The employment numbers have actually decreased by 35,000 in Q4, that ain't stabilisation.

Its awful for the young :mad: Some have emigration and some are in education and one asks where will the jobs be for when they finish their courses?
"Overall participation rate in the Labour Force continues to fall....The greatest
decreases continued to be shown in the 15-19 and 20-24 age groups"

These figures to me say its carnage out there. :mad:

IT wrote:

The overall employment rate among persons aged 15-64 fell by 4.9 percentage points to 61.1 per cent.

Employment rates fell across all age groups but the largest decrease was recorded for those aged 20-24 with a 9 per cent decline over the year.

The total number of people in the labour force in the fourth quarter was 2,155,200, representing a decrease of 69,100 or 3.1 per cent over the year.

This compares with an annual labour force decline of 0.7 per cent or 15,500 in the final quarter of 2008. The overall participation rate declined from 62.9 per cent to 61.2 per cent in the year to the fourth quarter of 2009

jank

Don't worry, now that Mary Coughlan is no longer in charge of Enterprise unemployment is bound to shoot downwards.

hinault

From the report :

"The number of non-Irish people in the labour force fell by 33,600 or 10% over the year, compared with a fall of 1.9% for Irish people. 255,200 non-Irish people were in work, while 47,900 were unemployed"

It would appear that even with emigration (non-Irish people leaving here, presumably), unemployment still increased throughout 2009.
(the numbers of non-Irish unemployed had been higher than 47,900).

Dreadful indictment of this country/economy.

ei.sdraob

hinault wrote: »

Dreadful indictment of this country/economy.

its ok the smart whoor economy will save us all

Idbatterim

Ofcourse the goverment are going to lie through their teeth, they almost have to. The say things oftern enough and hope that people believe it. Its all propoganda, anyone who takes anything they say at face value must have a few screws loose! One of the biggest problems at the moment is with consumer confidence (which is non existant), if the goverment were actually calling it as it is, even the few that do believe "we have turned the corner or stabilised" would loose faith! The thing is I actually do believe that a majority of people do believe the goverment when they say this, a significant enough majority to make it worth their while!

beeno67

gurramok wrote: »

http://www.cso.ie/releasespublications/documents/labour_market/current/qnhs.pdf (http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2010/0324/breaking34.html )

That shoots down those on this forum who said unemployment had 'stabilised' since last summer. It also torpedoes the Govt line on stabilisation also.

The employment numbers have actually decreased by 35,000 in Q4, that ain't stabilisation.

Its awful for the young :mad: Some have emigration and some are in education and one asks where will the jobs be for when they finish their courses?
"Overall participation rate in the Labour Force continues to fall....The greatest
decreases continued to be shown in the 15-19 and 20-24 age groups"

These figures to me say its carnage out there. :mad:

I am not trying to belittle the plight of people who have become unemployed and certainly unemployment is rising but we need to be careful with the figures.

For Example the paper says current labour force is 2,155,200 which is down 69,000 on the year. However it is an increase of 23,000 on quarter 2 2006 which most people feel was the height of the boom.

Also the amount in employment now at 1,887,700 while a dramatic reduction over the last few years is higher than it was in 2004.

seamus

beeno67 wrote: »

Also the amount in employment now at 1,887,700 while a dramatic reduction over the last few years is higher than it was in 2004.

That was something which popped out at me. The report shows that the number of people in employment in Oct-Dec 2005 was 2,000,000. As said, most people consider Q2 2006 to be the height of the boom and Q2 2008 (?) to be the start of the recession/downturn. The intervening two years were somewhat confused, if not stagnany. Either way it indicates that there was a massive jump in the size of the workforce between 2004 and 2008 of the order of up to 10%. With such a rapid contraction of the economy, we shouldn't be surprised to see boom employment become bust unemployment.

The report however does show a decline in unemployment numbers in Q4 2009 which is consistent with any figures released at the end of last year. The reasons behind it or the meaning of it is less obvious though - the numbers unemployed dropped, but so too did the numbers in employment and the size of the labour market. There are many possible causes for this. Emigration seems the most obvious, but people going back to education could equally explain it.
However, given the massive increase in the labour force over the previous 4/5 years which can only be attributed to immigration, and hinault's figures above, then I think it's most likely that the contraction in the size of the labour market is down to emigration.

I wouldn't say that it "torpedos" any talk of stabilisation unless someone tried to claim we'd stabilised at the start of 2009.

The report is a useful retrospect, but I think the figures for Q1 2010 (which is nearly over) will tell us a bit more about how to interpret Q4 2009.

waffleman

The overall employment rate among persons aged 15-64 fell by 4.9 percentage points to 61.1 per cent.

WOW this is what stood out for me! over a third of that age group out of a job - we're f**ked if this continues

even when I was 15 i had a part time job - this is crazy

Dubh Geannain

waffleman wrote: »

WOW this is what stood out for me! over a third of that age group out of a job - we're f**ked if this continues

Although it's true to say that remember though there is always going to be a proportion of that 1/3 that either can't work or can't be bothered to work.

seamus

waffleman wrote: »

WOW this is what stood out for me! over a third of that age group out of a job - we're f**ked if this continues

even when I was 15 i had a part time job - this is crazy

You're reading that wrong. 39% of *all* people aged 15-64 are not working. That doesn't mean they're all unemployed.

The vast majority of people between 15 and 20 are in a full-time education. A lot of people over 55 are retired.

For the purposes of looking at unemployment figures, the size of the non-labour market (i.e. everyone not available to work) isn't that important unless the participation rate starts to drop sharply - indicating that people are opting out of work (usually to go into education).

waffleman

seamus wrote: »

You're reading that wrong. 39% of *all* people aged 15-64 are not working. That doesn't mean they're all unemployed.

The vast majority of people between 15 and 20 are in a full-time education. A lot of people over 55 are retired.

For the purposes of looking at unemployment figures, the size of the non-labour market (i.e. everyone not available to work) isn't that important unless the participation rate starts to drop sharply - indicating that people are opting out of work (usually to go into education).

I'm aware of what you are saying - I did think about disability, people in education (admittedly not retired under 65s ). Maybe I'm way off but I still thought it sounded high.

http://assets.cambridge.org/97805218/02413/sample/9780521802413ws.pdf

looking at page 21 of this report it seems Ireland had a relatively low % of people of working age in employment pre-boom. With our present economic turmoil can we afford to return to these levels? looks like we won't have a choice the way the government are handling things.

Pete4779

So what you are saying is that almost 40% of the 15-64 age group, i.e., the working age population is not working, out of work, unemployed or unemployable.

That's pretty fricking bad, I must say. So each worker is supporting one other person entirely unemployed, and likely 1-2 others on pensions.

No wonder my public sector salary has been cut by almost ~ 25% in the last year.

Boskowski

Pete4779 wrote: »

No wonder my public sector salary has been cut by almost ~ 25% in the last year.

including your public sector wage that's four people i am aupporting then. SCNR

buddy4711

The 13% is a big crock, I think. So many who have no work were self-employed, and can't sign on, and so many more thousands have emigrated. The true figure must surely be much higher than the official Figure? Or am I way off?** Edit - or does it mean that I didn't bother to read the very informative posts already made! Ahem.

zielarz

The good news is .. 86,9% have jobs.

oppenheimer1

Pete4779 wrote: »

So what you are saying is that almost 40% of the 15-64 age group, i.e., the working age population is not working, out of work, unemployed or unemployable.

That's pretty fricking bad, I must say. So each worker is supporting one other person entirely unemployed, and likely 1-2 others on pensions.

No wonder my public sector salary has been cut by almost ~ 25% in the last year.

Its a poor age bracket to choose to be honest, it would be better if the used 22 to 65 as It would exclude the vast majority of the student population.

K-9

I think it may include Stay at Home Mothers to.

Males showed a massive drop between 18 and 34.
Female unemployment was about half the male rate in those groups.

SkepticOne

Idbatterim wrote: »

Ofcourse the goverment are going to lie through their teeth, they almost have to. The say things oftern enough and hope that people believe it. Its all propoganda, anyone who takes anything they say at face value must have a few screws loose! One of the biggest problems at the moment is with consumer confidence (which is non existant), if the goverment were actually calling it as it is, even the few that do believe "we have turned the corner or stabilised" would loose faith! The thing is I actually do believe that a majority of people do believe the goverment when they say this, a significant enough majority to make it worth their while!

The real damaging thing is when the government themselves start believing that "we've turned the corner" and start making decisions on that basis. The likes of NAMA is based on a lot of this sort of wishful thinking unfortunately.