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.