05/11/2011: Jobs destruction in Ireland 2008-2010

So we had the Celtic Tiger, now we are having a Celtic Bust. Our extreme (for a young, small open economy with high levels of tertiary education - in numbers, if not quality - etc). But how do we stack up against other advanced economies in this area?

Here's some data from the OECD covering the period of the crisis (2008-2010, no annual data for 2011 yet) on jobs destruction in Ireland, compared to same in other advanced economies.

For a small economy, even in absolute terms, the number of jobs lost in Ireland in 2008-2010 period was 261,000 or 8th largest loss in the sample of 24 advanced economies. Net of new jobs created (+11,000), Irish economy lost 251,000 (note rounding differences) jobs in the period covered. The net loss we sustained in terms of jobs destruction in absolute terms was the 5th largest in the advanced economies sample.

Chart below puts the above numbers in relative context. As a percentage of total employment, Irish net jobs destruction was 12.2% - second highest after Estonia.

In terms of sectors most severely impacted by losses, Construction leads with 87.8% share of all jobs changes during the crisis. Surprisingly - being the source of so much destruction via Irish domestic banking collapse - Financial Services jobs category posted the shallowest jobs declines at 15.1%. This is most likely due to the lack of layoffs in the state-controlled banking sector, plus the resilience of the IFSC. The only sector that saw increases in jobs numbers is the sector of Community, social and personal services.