6/2/2014: Dependency Ratios Out to 2050

You've heard many analysts talking about the 'demographic dividend' for Ireland as if young people (we still have more of them than other countries in Europe) can be locked safely within the shores of this island. But supply of emigrants from this (and any other country) is driven, in part, by the demand for younger workers in the labour forces around the world. And here things are rather testy:

So that story of the 'demographic dividend'... do we have a policy plan for protecting or securing it here in Ireland? one can only keep hoping... 

23/9/2013: Sunday Times 08/09/2013: Irish Demographic Dividend Reversal

This is an unedited version of my Sunday Times article from September 8, 2013.


Back in the heady days of the Celtic Tiger, Irish economics commentariat and banks experts were extolling the virtues of Ireland's 'demographic dividend'.  A confluence of high birth rates, declining mortality and robust inward migration was propelling Ireland toward perpetually rising population counts. With these, the argument went, Ireland faced the ever-lasting expansion of domestic demand and labour supply.

Less than a decade later, the dividend has all but vanished in the maelstrom of rampant emigration. More ominously, as the latest trends suggest emigration is now reaching well beyond the traditionally at-risk sub-categories of the recent newcomers to Ireland and the long-term unemployed. Instead, outflows of professionals and middle-class families are now also on the rise.


Cutting across this nirvana of consensus permeating the Irish society around 2004-2006, few dared to suggest that something major was amiss in the aforementioned theory. Yet, the risks to Ireland's 'demographic dividend' were visible even at the time of the boom. At the peak of the Celtic Tiger and since the beginning of the Great Recession, I wrote about them in Irish media, including in these very pages. The first threat to our long-term population trends even in 2004-2006 period related to the risk of a structural economic slowdown. The second one came from the demographic ageing of the core European states and the resulting inevitable rise in wages premium for younger workers in these economies.

With the onset of the Great Recession, increased job markets uncertainty and declining disposable incomes have acted to boost Ireland’s birth rates, seemingly supporting the argument of some analysts that the demographic dividend was still alive and well then. In 1995-2007, there were 56,423 annual births on average in the Republic. In 2008-2009 average annual number of births stood at 74,183. Changes in the incentives for having children offered by the Great Recession were clearly the factor pushing fertility up. Alas, the latest data covering the twelve months through April 2013 shows that this process is now exhausted with 2013 births counts down 8.7 percent on 2010 peak.

Offsetting the initial rise in births, the Great Recession pushed Ireland back into becoming a net emigration nation once again, for the first time since 1995. Data published by the CSO last week shows that in 12 months through April 2013, total of 89,000 people have left the country. This is the highest number since the records started in 1987. There was a small increase in immigration driven primarily by importation of specialist foreign workers by the booming ICT and IFSC sectors, plus the return of students working on 1 and 2-year visas abroad. Despite this, 2013 marks the fourth consecutive year of net emigration.

Current rates of emigration are running ahead of the 1987-1995 period average. Back then, net emigration from Ireland averaged 14,811 per annum. Over the last four years, the average net outflow of people from this country stood at 30,600 annually.

The twin squeeze of declining birth rates and strong net emigration has resulted in 2013 posting the weakest overall population changes in 23 years. In 12 months through April 2013, Irish population grew estimated 7,700 - one seventh of the annual average for the 1991-2007 period. This brings us dangerously close to a rerun of the 1980s-styled demographic collapse when Irish population actually declined in three years through 1990.

Truth be told, we are probably caught in this 'back to the future' demographic warp already.

Our official statistics show inflow of 29,400 immigrants, excluding the returning Irish nationals and the immigrants from the Accession states, in the 12 months through April 2013. Majority of these are likely to be foreign workers brought into the country temporarily by the MNCs. Moreover, the current CSO estimates are based on PPS numbers, foreign visas issuance, as well as household surveys. These methods are potentially underestimating the numbers of those Irish nationals who have left the country, but still have close family remaining here. Last, but not least, our data is probably also underestimating outflows of the EU12 Accession states’ nationals.

Controlling for the above factors, it is highly likely that we are already experiencing a reversal of the ‘demographic dividend’ and the onset of the zero-to-negative population growth in Ireland since 2011. This has meant that our population today is some 436,000 below where it would have been if the trend established between 2000 and 2007 were to continue.


Ireland's emigration flows and population changes by age and nationality are retracing the structural collapse of our economy: the story of our paralysed and polarised society burdened by debts, taxes, unemployment, lack of opportunities for career advancement and fear for the future.

From 2010 through 2013, the numbers of Irish nationals opting to leave the country net of those returning from abroad have been rising steadily. The net outflow of Irish nationals more than tripled between 2010 and 2013. If between 2006 and 2008, some 32,100 more Irish people returned home than left Ireland, over the subsequent 5 years, 90,700 more Irish people emigrated from the island than moved here.

In addition to the above, there are some new undertones that are emerging in the data over the last two years.

Official data on population breakdown by age groups shows that the bulk of population declines over the crisis in Ireland took place in the 15-29 year olds cohorts. However, since 2011, the 30-39 year olds cohort is also posting declining numbers. These age-related trends are now pushing us toward twin age dependency scenario where the numbers of old age-dependent residents and young age-dependents peak at the same time. Top productivity cohorts - ages 34-54 - grew by 124,000 since 2007, while old and young age dependents cohorts are up 203,600 over the same period of time. Working age cohorts (20 years of age through 64 years of age) accounted for 62.4 percent of Irish population in 2007. This year the ratio is 59.7 percent.

Compared against the age distribution of the unemployment, the latest trends suggest that jobs losses are no longer the sole drivers of emigration. Instead, it appears that emigration is increasingly afflicting those groups of population that are generally more secure in their jobs. The potential reasons for this are household debt overhang and lack of promotional opportunities open to the younger workers here.

While the numbers of emigrants between 15 and 24 years of age remained basically unchanged over 2011-2013 period, the numbers of emigrants between 25 and 44 years of age rose by a third. With this, there was a corresponding rise in families relocating abroad.

With banks starting to move more aggressively against distressed borrowers, these sub-trends are likely to strengthen over time.

Economic and social losses arising from debt crisis are also likely to increase as migrants due to debt and/or career considerations are more likely to carry with them above average skills, productivity and earning potential. In addition, these migrants are less likely to return to Ireland, especially if the debt they leave behind remains on the record against their names.


The impact of the current wave of emigration on our society and economy is likely to be more long lasting than that of the previous emigration waves. This conjecture is supported by a number of considerations.

Today’s emigrants are conditioned by their education, past employment experiences and social values systems to accept the mobile nature of their future careers. In other words, having left Ireland they are unlikely to look back at their homeland as a natural home. Increasingly, Irish emigrants are setting their sights on geographies that are more remote from Ireland than the UK and continental Europe. This puts more stress on their ties to Ireland. The latest data showing that emigrants to countries like Australia, New Zealand and Canada tend to show lower returns in recent years. In addition, debt legacy will hold many of them back from returning to Ireland in the future. Age-related considerations with further reinforce this effect, with many emigrants in their mid-30s and 40s today facing a prospect of never again being able to secure a mortgage in Ireland were they to attempt a comeback. Lastly, a major factor in today’s emigration from Ireland is that it involves greater proportion of emigrants who enter their host destinations legally, thus increasing their chances at future naturalisation.

Overall, CSO data confirms the above observations, as fewer and fewer Irish nationals are today returning back home.


Far from being a solution to our economic woes or a temporary safety valve for the economy saddled with high levels of unemployment, current wave of emigration from Ireland is undermining the prospects of economic recovery here. More crucially, by removing more politically and socially disenchanted and activist younger people and families, the emigration is acting to mute the voices of dissent here. With them, the raison d’etre for the robust political, social and economic changes is slipping away too.

BOX-OUT:

Markit-Investec Purchasing Manager Indices for Irish Manufacturing and Services have both posted significant gains in August, compared to July. August PMI for Manufacturing came in at 52.0, showing the fastest pace of economic activity growth for the sector since November 2012. Meanwhile, Services PMI reading of 61.6 was the highest since February 2007. Both indices are subject to significant distortions from the multinational companies based here. However, Services PMI is subject to more severe skews due to the tax arbitrage activities by companies operating in international financial services, ICT services and auxiliary business support services. Nonetheless, caveats aside, the latest data strongly suggests that Ireland has moved out of the triple-dip recession in Q3 2013 and will post growth in GDP for the three months through September. Aside from this, however, the PMIs continue to signal relative weakness in the domestic sectors compared to exports and employment growth signals have weakened in both sectors of the economy. Finally, additional good news were signaled by the improved profit margins in Services, now third month running and marking the first sustained upward momentum in profits in five years. This, however, was not the case in Manufacturing, where input costs rose against basically unchanged output prices.

8/9/2013: Dublin's 'burgeoning' workforce attracts MNCs? Err... what?..

A quick post. Recent research note from one of the highly regarded property research outfits in Ireland cited the following sources of Ireland's success in attracting nine out of ten largest tech companies to Dublin: "low corporation tax rates and a burgeoning workforce which is young, educated and English speaking." This references not some abstract period of, say, 'since 1990' or even 'since 2000', but the last few years, as the argument is then carried over as a reason / a causal explanation for the reported boom in prime office rents in Dublin in H1 2013.

While I do not want to pick any fights over anything, least of all the 'young' bit (read my Sunday Times column from today on 'demographic dividend') or 'educated' part (see my view of our education system and skills/human capital on this blog) or 'English speaking' (slightly ironic, given tech employers are complaining about the lack of foreign languages skills availability in Dublin), I wonder what this 'burgeoning workforce' references.

Here is data from CSO on Dublin's workforce for Q2 (or H1) in every year on record: 

Can you spot 'burgeoning'? In Q2 2013, there were 555,100 persons aged over 15 in employment in Dublin region. This represents second lowest level of employment (after Q2 2012 when the number was only 7,700 lower at 547,400) since Q2 2004. In other words, our workforce 'burgeoned' into a 10-year slump in terms of employment.

Now, in terms of labour force numbers, in Q2 2013 there were 630,500 in labour force in Dublin. This marked an increase of only 6,200 on Q2 2012 and marked the second lowest level reading since Q2 2006. With all the positive demographics and the tech sector boom cited by the property researchers, the burgeoning we might have experienced in labour force levels terms was consistent with the hitting a 7-year slump. Slightly more 'burgeoning' than employment figures, but still not exactly exciting enough to stir any tech companies rushing into Dublin.

Note: I reference two numbers in relation to the 'workforce' term: labour force and employment. The latter measures those who currently work, the former includes the latter, plus the unemployed, excluding  those in education and training. I seriously doubt US tech giants are coming here for the pool of the unemployed. Which means that the 'workforce' that can be expected to be strongly positively correlated with incentives for the MNCs to locate here would be measured by employment figures, not by general labour force ones.

30/9/2012: Ireland's Demographic Dividend Turns Negative?

Ireland has one of the highest and healthiest birth rates in the advanced economies club, a fact that remains valid even today, amidst the economic downturn. In the past, this has prompted some economists and commentators to label this trend 'the demographic dividend'. I always pointed to the fact that if this indeed is a 'dividend', then retaining it within the Irish economy (society) is as important as generating it in the first place. Alas, over the recent years, our demographic dividend has been largely squandered away by the combination of a cyclical downturn (temporary loss of jobs) and more importantly by the structural recession (longer term loss of jobs). I highlighted the top line trends in our migration in the previous posts (here and here).

Here, let's take a quick look at the 'demographic dividend'.

With many caveats, let us define two groups of population: those in active working age group (20-64 years old) and those outside this group (0-19 years old and over 65 years old). The reason for these definitions is that younger people  under 20 years of age are significantly engaged in education systems and although some of the students do work, they are not engaged in career-enhancing work and/or work part time. Similarly, some of the people in age category over 65 are still very much gainfully employed, but vast majority of people in this age category either work part time, or do not work at all. Again, all of this relates to formal employment, so we omit household work, which is important in the economy as well, but is hard to quantify.

With caveats, then:

• Between 2006 and 2009 working age group population in Ireland grew by 189,100 and in the period of 2010-2012 it shrunk by 27,000. Quite a reversal in the 'demographic dividend' if you ask me.
• The same group share of total population grew by 0.1 percentage point in 2006-2009 period and contracted by 1.0 percent in 2010-2012 period.
• Meanwhile, the opposite side of the 'dividend' performed in exactly the opposite direction: non-working age population grew in 2006-2009 period by 114,500 and then again expanded by 57,700 in the period of 2010-2012. 
• The share of total population that is captured by the non-working age population shrunk by 0.1% in 2006-2009 period and grew by 1.0% in 2010-2012.
• Let's sum this up: in 2006-2012 period, working age population expanded by 150,800, while non-working age population grew 201,600. If this is a dividend, so far it is coming up negative. Proportion of working age population as a share of total population shrunk 1.5% and proportion of non-working age population expanded by 1.5%.

Charts to illustrate:

The above, of course, leaves out the account of unemployment. But even abstracting away from this, Ireland is now at risk of suffering from rising twin dependency: fewer working-age people funding more non-working-age people. All because of emigration. Dividend...

28/3/2012: Sunday Times 25/3/2012 - Irish emigration curse

Below is the unedited version of my article for Sunday Times from 25/03/2012.

Last week, as Ireland and the world celebrated the St Patrick’s Day, close to fifteen hundred Irish residents, including close to a thousand of Irish nationals, have left this country. In all the celebratory public relations kitsch, no Irish official has bothered to remember those who are currently being driven out of their native and adopted homeland by the realities of our dire economic situation.

According to the latest CSO report – covering the period from 1987 through 2011, emigration from Ireland has hit a record high. In a year to April 2011 some 76,400 Irish residents have chosen to leave the country, against the previous high of 70,600 recorded in 1989. For the first time since 1990, emigration has surpassed the number of births.

Given the CSO methodology, it is highly probable that the above figures tell only a part of the story. Our official emigration statistics are based on the Quarterly National Household Survey, unlikely to cover with reasonable accuracy highly mobile and less likely to engage in official surveys younger households, especially those that moved to Ireland from East Central Europe.

For example, emigration numbers for Irish nationals rose 200% between 2008 and 2011, with steady increases recorded every year since the onset of the crisis. Over the same period of time, growth in emigration outflows of EU15 (ex-UK) nationals from Ireland peaked in 2008-2009 and halved since then. Prior to 2010, Irish nationals contributed between 0% and 10% of the total net migration numbers. By 2010 and 2011 this rose to 42% and 68% respectively. Meanwhile, the largest driver of net migration inflows prior to the crisis - EU12 states nationals - were the source of the largest emigration outflows in 2009, but their share of net outflows has fallen to 39% and 13% in 2010 and 2011 respectively. There were no corresponding shifts in Irish and non-Irish nationals’ shares on the Live Register. In other words, unemployment data for non-Nationals does not appear to collaborate the official emigration statistics, most likely reflecting some significant under-reporting of actual emigration rates for EU12 and other non-EU nationals.

There are more worrisome facts that point to a dramatic change in the migration flows in recent years. Back in 2004-2007 there were a number of boisterous reports issued by banks and stockbrokerages that claimed that Irish population and migration dynamics were driving significant and long-term sustainable growth into the Irish economy. The so-called demographic dividend, we were told, was the vote of confidence in the future of this economy, the driver of demand for property and investment, savings and consumption.

In 2006, one illustrious stockbrokerage research outfit produced the following conclusions: “The population [of Ireland] is forecast to reach 5 million in 2015… The labour force is projected to grow at an annual average 2.2% over the whole period 2005 to 2015. Combined with sustained 3% annual growth in productivity, this suggests the underlying potential real rate of growth in Irish GDP in the five years to 2010 could be close to 5.75%. Between 2011 and 2015, the potential GDP growth rate could cool down to around 5%.”

Since the onset of the crisis, however, the ‘dividend’ has turned into a loss, as I predicted back in 2006 in response to the aforementioned report publication. People tend to follow opportunities, not stick around in a hope of old-age pay-outs on having kids. In 2009, only 33% of new holders of PPS numbers were employed. Back in 2004 that number was 68%. Amazingly, only one third of those who moved to Ireland in 2004-2007 were still in employment in 2009. Almost half of those who came here in 2008 had no employment activity in the last 2 years on record (2008 and 2009) and for those who came here in 2009 the figure was two thirds.

In more simple terms, prior to the crisis, majority (up to 68%) of those who came here did so to work. Now (at least in 2009 – the last year we have official record for) only one third did the same. It is not only the gross emigration of the Nationals and Non-Nationals that is working against Ireland today. Instead, the changes in employability of Non-Nationals who continue to move into Ireland are compounding the overall cost of emigration.

In order to assess these costs, let us first consider the evidence on net emigration in excess of immigration. In every year – pre-crisis and since 2008, there were both simultaneous inflows and outflows of people to and from Ireland. In 2006, the number of people immigrating into Ireland was above the number of people emigrating from Ireland by 71,800. Last year, there was net emigration of 34,100. Between 2009 and 2011, some 76,400 more people left Ireland than moved here.

Assuming that 2004-2007 period was the period of ‘demographic dividend’, total net outflows of people from the country in the period since 2008 through 2011 compared to the pre-crisis migration trend is 203,400 people. In other words, were the ‘demographic dividend’ continued at the rates of 2004-2007 unabated through the years of the current crisis, working population addition to Ireland from net migration would have been around 2/3rds of 203,400 net migrants or roughly 136,000 people. Based on the latest average earnings of €689.54 per week, recorded in Q4 2011, and an extremely conservative value added multiplier of 2.5 times earnings, the total cost of the ‘demographic losses’ arising from emigration can be close to 8% of our GDP. And that is before we factor in substantial costs of keeping a small army of immigrants on the Live Register. Some dividend this is.

This is only the tip of an iceberg, when it comes to capturing the economic costs of emigration as the estimates above ignore some other, for now unquantifiable losses, that are still working through the system.

In recent years, Ireland experienced a small, but noticeable baby boom. In 2007-2007, the average annual number of births in Ireland stood at just below 60,000. During 2009-2011 period that number rose by almost 25%. 2011 marked the record year of births in Ireland since 1987 – at 75,100. In the environment of high unemployment, elevated birth rates can act to actually temporarily moderate overall emigration, since maternity benefits are not generally transferable from Ireland to other countries, especially the countries outside the EU. Even when these benefits do transfer with families, new host country benefits replacement may be much lower than the benefits in Ireland. Which, of course, means that a number of emigrants from Ireland can be temporarily under-reported until that time when the maternity benefits run their course and spouses reunite abroad.

Even absent the above lags and reporting errors, net migration is now running close to its historic high. In 2011, there were total net emigration of 34,100 from Ireland against 34,500 in 2010. These represent the second and the first highest rates of net emigration since 1990.

At this stage, it is pretty much irrelevant – from the policy debate point of view – whether or not emigrants are leaving this country because they are forced to do so by the jobs losses or are compelled to make such a choice because of their perceptions of the potential for having a future in Ireland. And it is wholly academic as to whether or not these people have any intentions of returning at some point in their lives. What matters is that Ireland is once again a large-scale exporter of skills, talents and productive capacity of hundreds of thousands of people. The dividend is now exhausted, replaced by a massive economic, not to mention personal, social, and political costs that come along with the Government policies that see massive scale emigration as a ‘safety valve’ and/or ‘personal choice’.

Charts:

Box-out:

On 14^th of March, Governor of the Central Bank of Ireland, Professor Honohan has told Limerick Law Society that Irish banks should be less inhibited about repossessing properties held against investment or buy-to-let mortgages. This conjecture cuts across a number of points, ranging from the capital implications of accelerated foreclosures to economic risks. However, one little known set of facts casts an even darker shadow over the banks capacity to what professor Honohan suggests they should. All of the core banking institutions in the country currently run large scale undertakings relating to covered bonds and securitizations they issued prior to 2008 crisis. Since 2008, the combination of falling credit ratings for the banks and accumulation of arrears in the mortgages accounts has meant that the banks were forced to increase the collateral held in the asset pools that back the bonds. In the case of just one Irish bank this over-collateralization increased by 60% in the last 4 years. This is done in order to increase security of the Covered Bond pool for the benefit of the Bondholders and is achieved by transferring additional mortgages into the pool. In just one year to December 2011, the said bank transferred over 26,000 new mortgages into one such pool. As the result of this, the bank can face restrictions and/or additional costs were it to foreclose on the mortgages within the pool. Things are even worse than that. In many cases, banks now hold mortgages that had their principal value pledged as a collateral in one vehicle while interest payments they generate has been collateralized through a separate vehicle. The mortgage itself can potentially even be double-collateralized into the security pool as described above. The big questions for the Central Bank in this context are: 1) Can the banks legally foreclose on such loans? and 2) Do the banks have sufficient capital and new collateral to cover the shortfalls arising from foreclosing mortgages without undermining Covered Bonds security?

2/02/2011: Dependency ratios

Looking over LR data earlier tonight, I decided to update the charts for dependency ratios, based on a combination of LR and QNHS. Here are some charts.

From the top: in Q1 1998 there were 1,619.8 thousand persons aged 15 years or older in Ireland that were not in full-time employment and 1,237.4 thousand of the same age category persons who were in full time employment - a ratio of 1.3. By Q1 2000 this ratio fell to 1.1. The same was attained in Q1 2005. This ratio declined to 1.0 in Q4 2005 and stayed there until Q4 2008. Then in Q 12009 the ratio rose to 1.3. As of Q3 2010, there were 2,075.9 thousand 15 year old and over persons who were not in full time employment in Ireland. Against this, there were 1,436.8 thousand persons of the same age category in full time employment. The implied ratio there for has rise to 1.4. Chart below illustrates:
Not scared yet? Ok, another shot:
Oh, and another angle:
The above shows just how bad is the dependency ratio getting in Ireland during the current crisis.

Economics 26/06/2009: EU growth, Planning Permissions & QNHS

Eurocoin is out again and it is time to update our forecasts for Euroarea growth. First a note - Eurocoin have revised their past numbers in line with new methodology.
Note that above I use upper range forecast for July Eurocoin of -0.52 and implied GDP growth forecast of -2.1% for Q2 2009. Lower range forecast for the indicator is -0.91 and for GDP growth of -2.5%. Thus, I see an even chance of renewed deterioration in growth conditions in the Euroarea into mid Summer.


CSO Planning Permissions data Q1 2009: planning permissions were granted for 14,177 dwelling units, compared with 18,582 units for the same period in 2008, a decrease of 23.7%. Planning Permissions were granted for 10,256 houses in Q1 2009 and 13,301 a year earlier, a decrease of 22.9%. Planning permissions were granted for 3,921 apartment units,
compared with 5,281 units for the same period in 2008, down 25.8%. One-off houses accounted for 19.3% of all new dwelling units granted planning permission in this quarter. The total number of planning permissions granted for all developments was 7,486. This compares with 11,055 in Q1 2008, a decrease of 32.3%. Total floor area planned was 3,419 thousand sq. metres in Q1 2009. Of this, 61.1% was for new dwellings, 25.4% for other new constructions and 13.4% for extensions. The total floor area planned decreased by 24.3% in comparison with the same quarter of 2008.

Illustrated:
Total annual permissions are down, Q1 permissions trending down as well, especially for dwellings.Total floor area down, but by less.
As average floor area per unit is rising along established trends - delivering value for money is tighter markets?The trend for better quality and smaller quantity is evident, which should improve performance for better builders, but pressure the profit margins. One area of concern is that the authorities are not granting higher density permissions, implying that per existent acre of site, cost of building is up, further reducing margins.
Track homes are not exactly popular, while
one-off houses are even less so. That said - square footage is also rising for one-off dwellings as, presumably, rural Ireland decided to spread out in the recession (those CAP payments are still rolling in?).
No such luck for apartments buyers, but they do have some nicer square footage to go by, as sales stagnated and developers need more goodies for money to close on new units. We can expect Ken 'The Merciless' MacDonald to start writing lengthy articles telling us that NOW IS THE TIME TO BUY one of his apartments, as RETURN OF CAPITAL APPRECIATION IS IMMINENT... Beware of the merchant...


Quarterly National Household Survey was out earlier in the week.

In Q1 2009 there were 1,965,600 persons in employment, an annual decrease of 158,500 or 7.5%. This compares with an annual decrease in employment of 3.9% in Q4 2008 and growth of 1.7% in the year to Q1 2008. There was an annual decrease of 122,200 or 10.2% in the number of men in employment, while the number of women in employment decreased by 36,300 or 3.9%.

The overall employment rate among persons aged 15-64 fell to 63.2%, down from 68.4% in Q1 2008. This brings the employment rate back to a level comparable to that recorded in Q1 1999, thus erasing all the demographic and migration benefits accruing to Ireland in the last 10 years.

Full-time employment decreased by 176,200 over the year, part-time employment increased by 17,700, with 14,700 of the increase attributable to males and 2,900 to females. Recalling that even before the current crisis Ireland was creating predominantly part-time jobs, we are now facing seriously adverse quality of employment conditions in the country.

There were 222,800 persons unemployed in Q1 2009, an increase of 113,400 (+103.7%) in the year. Male unemployment increased by 85,300 (+116.7%), with the number of unemployed females increasing by 28,200 (+77.7%). The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate increased from 8.1% to 10.2% over the quarter and from 4.9% over the year - the highest level since 1997. Seasonally adjusted, the male and female unemployment rates stood at 12.5% and 7.0% respectively. The long-term unemployment rate was 2.2% in Q1 2009 compared to a rate of 1.3% in Q1 2008.

Now, some illustrations:
Employment is folding everywhere, except for personal protection services. wait another few months and a new emergency rip-off Budget, and guarding our unpopular Government will be the boom sector...
Average hours worked down, short-term work up, contractors work down. And in more details:
Bad employment up, good employment down. But public sector is not feeling the heat:

Regionally - all the subsidies to waste, the same black spots of unemployment remain:Border, Midlands, Mid-West and South-East are all bad performers in unemployment terms in the boom days of 2007. Ditto today. A new entry - casualty of the downturn - is the West. Doubtless, there will be calls for new tax on Dublin to pay welfare rolls wages out in our Gateways to Excellence Regions... But look at participation rates:
Collapsing across the state. Note Border and Midlands - dramatic fold down in participation rates - driven by, most likely an exodus of younger workers from Dublin and other areas' construction sites... No wonder I heard Midlands referred to as our Little Poland (Lithuania, etc).

And finally - my favourite topic - demographic dividend...
Note that as of Q1 2009, unemployment rate among 15-19 yo males was 33%! We are indeed wasting our young to protect job security of our public sector middle-aged and elderly...