Ireland faces ‘daunting’ job growth challenge

IRISH and foreign-owned companies added less than 4,000 net jobs in the international tradable goods and services sectors in the 10 years 1999-2008, as overall employment grew by more than half a million.

This is according to analysis by Michael Hennigan, founder andeditor of www.finfacts.ie. To get employment back to the mid-2008 level would need the creation of 160,0000 new jobs, which is a “daunting challenge”, he said.

“There are no simple panaceas but an analysis by Finfacts highlights a number of issues,” he said. Mr Hennigan stresses the need to create a competitive environment where the economy can flourish.

He criticises the failure of governments to exploit the food sector more effectively, which has a proven track record.

He says this is a sector that has been neglected and points out that in 2008 exports fell.

New figures to be released soon by Bord Bia will show exports in food and drink have fallen by over €1bn in 2009, down to €7bn or less against export sales of €8bn achieved in 2008, as previously reported by the Irish Examiner.

By comparison New Zealand’s biggest dairy company Fonterra is responsible for 25% of the country’s export earnings and accounts for over a third of international trade in dairy products.

Our dairy sector is fragmented and invests significantly less than its major competitors in terms of investment and R&D and focuses on low value-added products, he said. That should be addressed as a matter for urgency because thereturns from food exports have a bigger overall impact on earnings in the economy.