Middle-class jobs set to be squeezed further

Recent US research suggests that not only are many recoveries from crashes jobless for a long time, but that they also see the destruction of large numbers of middle- class jobs.

When recoveries happen jobs do come back, but these are typically at lower skill and wage levels than before, or at the very high end. Middle-class jobs tend to get squeezed. This trend has been noted not just in US and British research, but is also an increasing feature of growth patterns in developing countries.

While growth is expected to return to the Irish economy, at least by measured GDP figures, the jobless total will fall very, very slowly.