Jobs in Irish exporting firms down 30,000 since Q2 2008

Jobs in Irish exporting firms at the end of September 2015 were down 30,000 compared with the second quarter (Q2) of 2008, according to the latest quarterly employment data published by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) on Tuesday.

The total number of jobs as per the chart below are down 172,000 in the period Q2 2008-Q3 2015.

There was an annual increase in employment of 2.9% or 55,600 in the year to the third quarter of 2015, bringing total seasonally-adjusted employment to 1,973,000 according to the Quarterly National Household Survey.

Employment increased by 11,600 (+0.6%) over the previous quarter. This follows on from a seasonally adjusted increase in employment of 17,000 (+0.9%) in Q2 2015.

The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate fell from 9.6% to 9.1% over the quarter. Unemployment dropped by 42,500 (-17.3%) in the year to Q3 2015 bringing the total number of persons officially unemployed to 203,000. The long-term unemployment rate declined from 6.4% to 5.0% over the year to Q3 2015. Long-term unemployment accounted for 54.1% of total unemployment in Q3 2015 compared with 56.7% a year earlier and 58.4% in the third quarter of 2013.

We reported last week that based on Live Register + activation scheme data that the broad rate of unemployment was about 19% — the CSO reports that at the end of September that 105,000 part-time workers were seeking full-time work and together with activation scheme number, amount to 180,000. An additional 35,000 people are classified as in the Potential Additional Workforce.  

The CSO says that the increase in total employment of in the year to Q3 2015 was represented by an increase in full-time employment of 59,400 (+4.0%) and a decrease in part-time employment of 3,400 (-0.8%) — however the total of  employees (full, part-time + activation schemes) rose by 49,000. Full-time self-employed are not necessarily earning a full-time wage.

In the two main exporting sectors (excluding Agriculture, forestry and fishing), Industry and Information and communication, saw a fall in jobs by 39,000 and a rise of 13,000 respectively, compared with 2008.

In other services areas where typically for indigenous firms the domestic/export turnover ratio would be 40 to 50%, there is an additional net 4,000 related to transport (aviation), financial services, and tourism-related activities.

In the recovery period end 2012-Q3 2015, 130,000 jobs have been added and 18,000 or 14% have been in Industry and Information and communication.

NACE is a Statistical Classification of Economic Activities developed by the EU and it is an acronym derived from the French title 'Nomenclature générale des Activités économiques dans les Communautés Européennes.'

The category Professional, scientific & technical activities, mainly covers staff in professional firms — there is a detail here on all the categories.

Last week we reported on the poor performance of the indigenous exporting sector because of teh low number of firms that export:

Europe's export stars: Ireland and UK as laggards Part 2