Tony Foley: Making plans for a slow grind sort of recovery
The economic decline caused by the Corona crisis is enormous and rapid. The number of people claiming the new Covid-19 unemployment payment of €350 was at 507,000 in early April and thousands more have yet to be paid because of issues such as inaccurate information. Meanwhile, the live register measuring the ‘normal’ level of unemployment was at 207,000 at the end of March, and then were over 200,000 people on the wage-subsidy scheme.
The rapidity of the slump in employment is unprecedented: In the last Irish economic collapse, employment fell by ‘only’ 335,000 over four years, not four weeks.
