Job Destruction Accelerates under the Blueshirts/Labour :-(

national | worker & community struggles and protests | news report Tuesday December 13, 2011 15:49 by Pól Ó Cionsalígh paulbkinsella at gmail dot com An Chúlóg, Báile Átha Cliath 17 0851478100

The rate of job destruction has accelerated in the quarter July to September 2011. On a seasonally adjusted basis, employment fell by 20,500 (-1.1%) in the quarter. This follows on from a seasonally adjusted fall in employment of 4,100 (-0.2%) in Q2 2011. This means that 20,500 more jobs were destroyed than were created in the quarter.  Minister Bruton's "Job Creation" measures had already been introduced in June. The continuation of the FF/Green austerity programme by Lab/FG destroyed far more jobs than were created(if any) by the Bruton measures.

Any suggestion that these job losses can be explained by seasonal workers bein laid off after the summer is completely wrong. These are seasonally adjusted figures. This means that such factors have already been taken into account.   The number in employment is a far more reliable and telling statistic than the unemployment rate This is due to a number of factors. The unemployment rate is reduced by emigration and by many who have exhausted their benefit being ineligible for means-tested assistance payments It is to be noted that the unemployment rate went up by 0.2% in the quarter while the number in employment decreased by 1.1% On a year on year basis the number unemployed went up by 15,700 but the number in employment went down by 46,000. It is worth noting that the job losses at Talk Talk did not actually take place until Oct 7 and the feared job losses at MBNA(Carrick-on-Shannon) had not yet occurred and are not reflected in these figures.