A little bit of good news

P. Breathnach

I know that it's not the done thing here to take an optimistic view, but I am pleased to note a small reduction in unemployment rates: http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/ireland/fall-in-number-of-people-signing-on-in-september-475589.html

Économiste Monétaire

CSO release here.

RichardAnd

A welcome change. I don't like to go along with the boards.ie pessimists but this could be down to emigration. Does anyone know if employment figures are up at all?

anndub

Don't tell me there are actually people who believe this. The government came out with this nonsense last September aswell. The reduction is due to people returning to education. For some reason those in receipt of the BTEA are not counted as being unemployed even though they had to be long term unemployed to recieve the payment. I presume its because they're not officially seeking work.

It also doesn't include those who are not entitled to the BTEA and have decided to fund their own further education (myself included) even though suspect most people in both the above categories would happily drop out of the education system if they were to find suitable work.

I can guarantee the dole queues will be longer than ever next June when all these people are once again entitled to sign on.

gurramok

Look beyond the spin. Same happened in Sept 2009 due to education and training programs. I quote our Minister.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2010/0805/breaking19.html?via=rel?via=rel

O'Cuiv wrote:

Minister for Social Protection Eamon O'Cuiv defended the unemployment figure - which has more than doubled over the last two years - saying it would reverse in the Autumn.

Tánaiste Mary Coughlan moved to ease the jobs crisis for young people by adding an additional €12 million to the Labour Market Activation Fund.

Ms Coughlan said the cash injection will support education and training programmes for at least 5,000 additional unemployed people and will bring the total number of participant places supported by the fund to over 11,000 this year.

Fiddling the figures does not mean its positive. Employment numbers at the last count were still falling.

Amhran Nua

Yeah thats Live Register figures. If you're in a VTOS, VEC or FAS course you are still unemployed but you're off the register, same for WPP and workfare and a host of other categorisations. The actual unemployed figure is now in the region of half a million, around 16%.

gurramok

20,800 on BTEA alone in the academic year for 2009/2010.
http://www.merrionstreet.ie/index.php/2010/07/o-cuiv-e169-million-available-for-more-flexible-back-to-education-allowance-scheme-for-201011-academic-year/

P. Breathnach

anndub wrote: »

Don't tell me there are actually people who believe this. The government came out with this nonsense last September aswell. The reduction is due to people returning to education....

They are seasonally-adjusted figures. The absolute fall was 24,506; after adjusting for things like return to education, the CSO calculates a fall of 5,400.

hobochris

P. Breathnach wrote: »

They are seasonally-adjusted figures. The absolute fall was 24,506; after adjusting or things like return to education, the CSO calculates a fall of 5,400.

I'd want to see emigration figures before I believe this to be anything other then government spin doctors at work.

hinault

Anecdotally. speaking to several people that I know and their companies are barely trading at present.

Several of them are on 4 day working week meaning that they're still regarded as being employed but they're not entitled to sign on for the day that they're not working.

Bleak out there folks.

SeaFields

Good news me arse. I know two people that emigrated last month. A trend all over the country I suspect. That on top of the colleges being back. is the reason the unemployment fell.

NOTHING to do with jobs being created.

gurramok

P. Breathnach wrote: »

They are seasonally-adjusted figures. The absolute fall was 24,506; after adjusting or things like return to education, the CSO calculates a fall of 5,400.

Where does it say it accounts for education and what types of people are included for the seasonally-adjusted?
Does seasonly adjusted account for movers from the dole to BTEA?

Oh, by the way we had the same crap last year. And it was proven later when the figures came out that employment figures kept falling over the period when 'unemployment turned' in September 2009.

FF propaganda exposed.

Mister men

These people are'nt finding jobs. They are going back to college or moving abroad. It's not good to see emigration on the rise.

Welease

RTE are saying the figures are the cleaned up version (with returns to education removed)

"
The number of people on the Live Register fell this month, according to the latest figures from the Central Statistics Office.
The seasonally adjusted figure dropped by 5,400 from August, to 449,600, the first fall since February.
This figure is more closely watched as it strips out seasonal changes, such as the return of students to college."
http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/0929/unemployment.html


The problem is.. We have large amounts of emmigrations.. The real figures (imo) could only be determined by contrasting with any increase in the numbers employed..

hinault

Welease wrote: »

RTE are saying the figures are the cleaned up version (with returns to education removed)

"
The number of people on the Live Register fell this month, according to the latest figures from the Central Statistics Office.
The seasonally adjusted figure dropped by 5,400 from August, to 449,600, the first fall since February.
This figure is more closely watched as it strips out seasonal changes, such as the return of students to college."
http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/0929/unemployment.html


The problem is.. We have large amounts of emmigrations.. The real figures (imo) could only be determined by contrasting with any increase in the numbers employed..

Agreed.

This is the only real measure, in reality.

FreudianSlippers

Mister men wrote: »

These people are'nt finding jobs. They are going back to college or moving abroad. It's not good to see emigration on the rise.

The fact of the matter is that we still create more educated workers than we can employ in this country. When there are less jobs emigration will rise. I really don't see the problem with this.

If you are not skilled enough to get a job in this country you either need to upskill or leave.

hinault

OisinT wrote: »

The fact of the matter is that we still create more educated workers than we can employ in this country. When there are less jobs emigration will rise. I really don't see the problem with this.

If you are not skilled enough to get a job in this country you either need to upskill or leave.

Bizzare reply.


So the taxpayer pays for educating our citizens, only for other country's to gain the benefit of that education.
An Irish solution to an Irish problem.

Are you Mary Coughlan?

gurramok

Here's the employment figures for Q1 2010(Jan-Mar). Employment levels were still falling from 1.887m to 1.857m on those latest figures. http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/0615/employment.pdf

As you can see from the lovely graph there on the first page, employment levels fell between the critical period of Aug 2009 and Nov 2009 when the Live Register figures fell too.
Here's Sept 2009 'great' news about unemployment figures.http://www.rte.ie/business/2009/0930/jobless.html
Also the same decline in the Live Register occurred in October 2009.http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2009/1104/breaking39.html

All these drops in unemployment are masked by the drop in employment numbers, those 'signing off' are not signing into jobs but rather going back to education and emigrating.

Its groundhog day again of lies about the state of the jobs market.

FreudianSlippers

hinault wrote: »

Bizzare reply.


So the taxpayer pays for educating our citizens, only for other country's to gain the benefit of that education.
An Irish solution to an Irish problem.

Are you Mary Coughlan?

Of course, and what is the solution to that? We will never have enough jobs in this country to employ all of our educated people.

PS: I don't get the deal with the whole "are you x" or "hello x" - are you really that thick that you think that is a witty response, or do you just really have nothing much to say other than you disagree with my viewpoint?

Scarab80

gurramok wrote: »

Here's the employment figures for Q1 2010(Jan-Mar). Employment levels were still falling from 1.887m to 1.857m on those latest figures. http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/0615/employment.pdf

The latest figures are for Q2 2010 (Apr-June), Employment levels rose slightly from 1,857m to 1,859m, unemployment also rose due to an increase in the labour force of 20,000

http://www.cso.ie/releasespublications/documents/labour_market/current/qnhs.pdf

Amhran Nua

OisinT wrote: »

We will never have enough jobs in this country to employ all of our educated people.

Thats a very broad statement there. If the entirety of our third level educational output was liberal arts degrees, I'd agree. If it was a broad spectrum of business and engineering types, I'd disagree. The Irish economy, underdeveloped as it is, has tremendous potential for growth with the right direction.

hinault

OisinT wrote: »

Of course, and what is the solution to that? We will never have enough jobs in this country to employ all of our educated people.

Really?

Why then did this country send trade missions to several European capital cities during the "economic boom" to recruit graduates?

OisinT wrote: »

PS: I don't get the deal with the whole "are you x" or "hello x" - are you really that thick that you think that is a witty response, or do you just really have nothing much to say other than you disagree with my viewpoint?

Your reply to this thread reminded me of the same replies uttered by Mary Coughlan when she extolled the virtues of emigration

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkkvU6LC3ZY&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSw825ORu2Q

hinault

edit double post.

FreudianSlippers

Amhran Nua wrote: »

Thats a very broad statement there. If the entirety of our third level educational output was liberal arts degrees, I'd agree. If it was a broad spectrum of business and engineering types, I'd disagree. The Irish economy, underdeveloped as it is, has tremendous potential for growth with the right direction.

OK, I agree with you there. I'm also a proponent of a more German style of education admissions and divisions, but that's slightly off topic.

gurramok

Scarab80 wrote: »

The latest figures are for Q2 2010 (Apr-June), Employment levels rose slightly from 1,857m to 1,859m, unemployment also rose due to an increase in the labour force of 20,000

http://www.cso.ie/releasespublications/documents/labour_market/current/qnhs.pdf

Ah, didn't see them released last week. So a small 2,000 rise in that quarter.

Do you expect a corresponding rise for Q3(July-Sept) and if so do you expect it to match the falling numbers of unemployed in Sept?

gurramok

Amhran Nua wrote: »

Yeah thats Live Register figures. If you're in a VTOS, VEC or FAS course you are still unemployed but you're off the register, same for WPP and workfare and a host of other categorisations. The actual unemployed figure is now in the region of half a million, around 16%.

Look at the QNHS for Q2, its a gender divide. They have after figure fiddling, unemployment among men at 16.7% and 9.8% among women.:eek:
http://www.cso.ie/releasespublications/documents/labour_market/current/qnhs.pdf

Économiste Monétaire

Amhran Nua wrote: »

The actual unemployed figure is now in the region of half a million, around 16%.

Half a million unemployed implies an unemployment rate of 23%.

Amhran Nua

Économiste Monétaire wrote: »

Half a million unemployed implies an unemployment rate of 23%.

Yup, the oul mind was wandering a bit which is what happens when you try to do three things at once.

P. Breathnach

Amhran Nua wrote: »

Yup, the oul mind was wandering a bit which is what happens when you try to do three things at once.

Not unemployed, then?

Amhran Nua

P. Breathnach wrote: »

Not unemployed, then?

Heh, running a bunch of contractors on a self employed basis across two countries, doing a lot of voluntary and community work, and trying to get a new political party off the ground while having a family. Sporadic, you might call my free time. Intermittent, even. Were you under the impression I was unemployed?

P. Breathnach

Amhran Nua wrote: »

... Were you under the impression I was unemployed?

Your personal circumstances are none of my business. I was indulging my odd sense of humour.

Nolanger

Some people who were receiving JBenefit ran out of credits and then didn't qualify for JAllowance. That would reduce the numbers signing on.

P. Breathnach

Nolanger wrote: »

Some people who were receiving JBenefit ran out of credits and then didn't qualify for JAllowance. That would reduce the numbers signing on.

Is this a new thing?

Scarab80

gurramok wrote: »

Ah, didn't see them released last week. So a small 2,000 rise in that quarter.

Do you expect a corresponding rise for Q3(July-Sept) and if so do you expect it to match the falling numbers of unemployed in Sept?

You tell me. Quarterly Job losses, Live Register v Household Survey

johnnyskeleton

Just a quick question - aren't the Live Register figures usually released on about the 3-4th of the following month?

I mean, September is not even finished yet but they are putting out the statistics.

Odd, I thought.

However, Table 7 shows the distribution by length of time on the dole. Almost all of the drops have been from people on the dole less than 1 year, with only 621 less people who had been on it for more than a year.

However, Table 4 shows that there are 7.5k less people claiming JA.

What do these two bits of information mean? Well the net outflow for JA was 7.5k, so that is 7.5k less long term unemployed, less no stamp unemployed (former self employed or seasonal/part time staff) and less never employed on the dole. But the net change in people on the dole means that there were more or less the same number of long term unemployed. So 7.5k less former self employed or never employed.

To further muddy the waters, Table 6 shows that only 218 people with "no occupation" left the register. So is it reasonable to assume that 7.5k less former self employed, seasonal or part time staff are signing on?

In terms of JB, this is where the real reduction is, with 16.5k less on JB this time, of which 11k are women. However, we know that the number of people progressing from JB to JA is minor, so these are 16.5k people who were either made redundant in the last year or else put on a 3 day week. Thus, 16.5k people either went back to full time, found a new full time job after losing their old one, emigrated, went back to education or lost their jobs last september and failed the means test.

Unfortunately the August 2009 stats don't say how many new JB claims were made so there is no way to discount the number of people who could possibly have run out of scratcher in Sept 10 and failed the means test.

Geographically, the reduction in persons signed on was fairly evenly spead, with the biggest drops in the border region and Dublin. The border is interesting because while there were almost the same reduction in numbers (4,146 in Border, 4,788 in Dublin), Dublin still has more than twice as many people signing on than the Border region. Thus, the Border region has experienced either the biggest increase in employment or the biggest increase in immigration.

However, the biggest reductions were in:

1. Clerical and secretarial (-5,915)
2. Professional (-4,377)
3. Craft (-3,878)

My analysis - office and craft workers in Dublin and the Border counties have gone from 3 day weeks back to full time, or having lost their jobs in the last year have found new jobs, or gone back to education or else emigrated or failed the means test.

Sorry to be pessimistic, but I would have thought that clerical/professional persons would have a higher propensity to go back to education or emigrate, but still I would imagine a lot of them have gone back to work having been made redundant last year.

johnnyskeleton

P. Breathnach wrote: »

They are seasonally-adjusted figures. The absolute fall was 24,506; after adjusting for things like return to education, the CSO calculates a fall of 5,400.

After adjusting for the typical return to education no? A once off increase in the numbers returning to education would show as a reduction in the seasonally adjusted figures no?

As gurramok says, it looks like the number of places increased by 9k.

RichardAnd

Though there are plenty of reasons to be ambivalent about this news, I have to say that the pessimism here is awful. Something I've noticed on these boards is that peoples' attitude towards the bust seems to be a mirror image of the common attitude for the boom.

What I mean by this is that most people 5 years ago wouldn't have entertained the notion that a bust was on the way. Today, I tend to notice that this has come full circle and now, many believe that the bust can never end.

Now I'm not for a second suggesting that hard times are ending but there was a good quote about this on the news tonight: "it's not bad news, so let's leave it at that". And this is very true, this isn't bad news, it may or may not be good news but us passing back sarcastic statments followed by the :rolleyes: (I HATE that icon) isn't helping any of us.

So for me, I'm deciding to stay on the fence with this for now. I really hope there's a change on the way but we'll just have to see.

P. Breathnach

RichardAnd wrote: »

Though there are plenty of reasons to be ambivalent about this news, I have to say that the pessimism here is awful. Something I've noticed on these boards is that peoples' attitude towards the bust seems to be a mirror image of the common attitude for the boom....

I had expected some negative reaction, which is why I remarked in my original post that it's not the done thing here to take an optimistic view.

It is disappointing to see how determined some people are to find bad news in everything. I don't deny that there is a great deal of bad news, but I don't believe that every thing, every single thing, that happens is bad.

[And I don't believe that the CSO is incompetent or dishonest; it's not a politically-driven body.]

questionmark?

I often wonder the real figure of the unemployed. I know of two people in their late twenties who couldn't afford to live on the Dole and had to make the decision to move back to the family home. Neither are entitled to any Dole payments but neither are considered unemployed as they are not signing on! I wonder how much this is happening.

Amhran Nua

RichardAnd wrote: »

Though there are plenty of reasons to be ambivalent about this news, I have to say that the pessimism here is awful.

People can believe in Santa Claus if it makes them feel better, but in order to deal with real issues we need real information. The ruling party has a long and spotty record of spinning news so hard that it begins to acquire its own gravity, sucking in otherwise intelligent observers, so the extreme scepticism with which positive announcements are treated has a grounding in experience. As for the CSO, they barely even had a handle on how many immigrants there were in the country until recently.

danbohan

Amhran Nua wrote: »

People can believe in Santa Claus if it makes them feel better, but in order to deal with real issues we need real information. The ruling party has a long and spotty record of spinning news so hard that it begins to acquire its own gravity, sucking in otherwise intelligent observers, so the extreme scepticism with which positive announcements are treated has a grounding in experience. As for the CSO, they barely even had a handle on how many immigrants there were in the country until recently.

brian lenihan on morning ireland now talking about ''welcome drop in unemployment'' , what a fjukn liar, he makes his father seem honest

gurramok

P. Breathnach wrote: »

I had expected some negative reaction, which is why I remarked in my original post that it's not the done thing here to take an optimistic view.

It is disappointing to see how determined some people are to find bad news in everything. I don't deny that there is a great deal of bad news, but I don't believe that every thing, every single thing, that happens is bad.

[And I don't believe that the CSO is incompetent or dishonest; it's not a politically-driven body.]

We do not seek bad news, we want the truth and not lies.

I'm just so surprised how you fell for this trick of the drop in Sept when the same happened last year which was proved to be false through fiddling figures about the state of the employment market.

Scarab80 wrote: »

You tell me. Quarterly Job losses, Live Register v Household Survey

Do you have up to date BTEA numbers, FAS numbers and emigration numbers to compare? (seen as we don't have employment numbers for Sept '10 yet)

dunsandin

I have a family member who is involved on the periphery of compiling stats. on the number of jobless.
Apparently you divide by two, add ten and round down to the nearest even thousand - that was my take on the convoluted, distorting method he outlined. My eyes glazed after about ten minutes of the explanation, but the up-shot was that there were so many exclusions, exemptions and false positives that to take the official "Live register" figure as anything more than a spin on a pre-spun statistically massaged miscalculation is to be somwhat naive.
Were I to lose my employment in the morning, I would appear on no register, and there must be many uncounted thousands just like me.
My daughter returned to education recently, back to a PACKED college lecture hall, brim full of mature students. Packed out, as is every other FAS, FETAC, Beautician and dog grooming course in the country. In the absence of employment, the nation has returned to education. It will be a very competitive jobs-market if and when employment rates rise, knee deep in post-grads.

hinault

dunsandin wrote: »

I have a family member who is involved on the periphery of compiling stats. on the number of jobless.
Apparently you divide by two, add ten and round down to the nearest even thousand - that was my take on the convoluted, distorting method he outlined. My eyes glazed after about ten minutes of the explanation, but the up-shot was that there were so many exclusions, exemptions and false positives that to take the official "Live register" figure as anything more than a spin on a pre-spun statistically massaged miscalculation is to be somwhat naive.
Were I to lose my employment in the morning, I would appear on no register, and there must be many uncounted thousands just like me.
My daughter returned to education recently, back to a PACKED college lecture hall, brim full of mature students. Packed out, as is every other FAS, FETAC, Beautician and dog grooming course in the country. In the absence of employment, the nation has returned to education. It will be a very competitive jobs-market if and when employment rates rise, knee deep in post-grads.

Our best and brightest went to the banking/accountancy sector during the past decade:rolleyes:

And what about grade inflation?

I kid you not, the quality of graduates in this country, despite having primary degrees and having sat professional exams is appalling.

I had to manage a project for a semi state company which involved hiring and managing young chartered accountants.
These guys all had degrees and had passed their professional exams.
Could they post a simple journal? No.
They didn't appear to know the difference between a debit and a credit entry.

We need people who can go out and create businesses.
Sitting in a classroom to avoid the dole queue won't solve this country's jobs crisis.
It might help to massage the unemployment figures by them staying in education but that's about it.

dunsandin

A Little off-topic, but, as a sideline, I build and refurbish houses, and I hire quite a few tradesmen as a result. I have absolutely no faith in the pieces of paper that so many so-called "qualified" guys have. I have encountered electricians who have qualified as electrical engineers, the full nine yards, who feck up the wiring on simple domestic re-furbs, and when you question them, they answer that they only did that sort of job "in theory" when at college. Same goes for plumbers, and I presume, but I dont know, that the same goes for college educated accountants, scientists etc. In fact, I know it does, because I hired a girl (qualified accountant) and asked her to do the Vat return, and she was stumped. Personally, I have no papers in anything, but I've lived and worked. We seem to be "educating" a lot of people to do nothing, well.

hinault

dunsandin wrote: »

A Little off-topic, but, as a sideline, I build and refurbish houses, and I hire quite a few tradesmen as a result. I have absolutely no faith in the pieces of paper that so many so-called "qualified" guys have. I have encountered electricians who have qualified as electrical engineers, the full nine yards, who feck up the wiring on simple domestic re-furbs, and when you question them, they answer that they only did that sort of job "in theory" when at college. Same goes for plumbers, and I presume, but I dont know, that the same goes for college educated accountants, scientists etc. In fact, I know it does, because I hired a girl (qualified accountant) and asked her to do the Vat return, and she was stumped. Personally, I have no papers in anything, but I've lived and worked. We seem to be "educating" a lot of people to do nothing, well.

I don't trust pieces of paper either : the test for me is whether or not someone can do the job.

I interview people and if I like them and decide to hire them and use the first week to confirm that they can do the job.
if they perform in the first week - they're hired.

dunsandin

I wonder could we apply this logic to our new Cabinet? I doubt it.
"So Mr Kenny, you're a school teacher? Well obviously you are emminently qualified to run a country."

Or Cowen/Lennihan.
"Lawyers are ye? Well obviously you are au-fait with international finance so. Away ye go and run the show".

RichardAnd

hinault wrote: »

Our best and brightest went to the banking/accountancy sector during the past decade:rolleyes:

And what about grade inflation?

I kid you not, the quality of graduates in this country, despite having primary degrees and having sat professional exams is appalling.

I had to manage a project for a semi state company which involved hiring and managing young chartered accountants.
These guys all had degrees and had passed their professional exams.
Could they post a simple journal? No.
They didn't appear to know the difference between a debit and a credit entry.

We need people who can go out and create businesses.
Sitting in a classroom to avoid the dole queue won't solve this country's jobs crisis.
It might help to massage the unemployment figures by them staying in education but that's about it.

this is something I have to agree with, and it is saddening. The quality of graduate in Ireland took a nose dive over the last 15 years. The problem is that our "education" system is all about grades. It's entirely possible to memorise stuff off, understand little of it and then spew it up for a nice shiny first class honours.

It all goes back to college fees I think. Making college widely accessibility only really flooded the market with graduates in silly courses. My degree sits in a draw in my desk at home because to be honest, it's not worth the paper it's printed on