I don’t get how this adds up. Every day a different business is closing up, not to mention all the larger scale tech layoffs last quarter. I’ve heard it said before this measure is bad for an indicator of how well an economy is doing as it includes things like zero hour contracts. But this seems to fly in the face of reality.

The other side of this is many think interest rates won’t stop rising/go down unless unemployment data indicates massive negative effect. Not one for conspiracy but doesn’t mesh with what I’ve seen.

https://www.thejournal.ie/unemployment-rate-at-lowest-in-over-20-years-6060552-May2023/

10 comments

  1. Your issue is thinking the media headlines is a reflection of reality. There was not large scale tech layoffs in Ireland. A few companies let a small number of people go, it isn’t like 50000 people lost their job

  2. >not to mention all the larger scale tech layoffs last quarter

    There were comparatively tiny amount of layoffs in the tech sector, all of who would have very quickly found jobs elsewhere because the entire industry’s been staff-constrained for ages.

    Also interest rates are global (or certainly European), while the Irish labour market is driven mostly by domestic conditions.

    It’s entirely possible to have a high-inflation period while employment and the economy in general are in very good health.

  4. There is zero unemployment in tech. The few that were laid off were slapped up by other companies. It’s still really hard to find good employees.

  5. I’m the first to admit I don’t understand economics, but my personal inflation rate is more like 40% than 7, judging by my electric, fuel and food costs.

  6. It doesn’t even matter if the unemployment rate is low. There are thousands of people who receive social welfare payments because their income is too low, or rely on other state sponsored subsidies because their income is too low. Then there’s 100k people on minimum wage. There’s probably a few thousand paid under it too – either foreigners or young people.

    Low unemployment rate doesn’t mean anything if the jobs are shit and you’re still struggling.

  7. During the pandemic income tax returns even when whole sectors like hospitality were shuttered because there’d been a huge increase in biomed and pharma production to meet global pandemic needs.

  9. There’s was not as many job loses here as in other countries in tech. They get hired by other companies quite quickly. There are also an uptick in people migrating again. There was 60,000 for May 2021 to April 2022 this can probably be attributed to covid restructions being relaxed, but I won’t be surprised if this is higher for this year when the figures are released. It feels like everyone is leaving out of college.

    We are also having a lot more people retiring these years than previous years ehoch opens up jobs for younger generations. Its also why there is so much talk of raising the age limit or trying to keep people working until 70 because of how huge the generation of people retiring is.

    As for immigrants they tend to have jobs lined up before they immigrate to Ireland and asylum speakers don’t get counted in unemployment rates.

    So it appears we are actually losing a few more workers than gaining despite some companies cutting staff head counts. Also some of these companies are just out sourcing jobs to 3rd party companies which is really just shifting the job instead of getting rid of it. Like outsourcing IT jobs to an IT specialist company instead of having it in-house.

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