Anthony Foley: Why Ireland's booming labour market is a bright spot for the economy

The number of jobs in Ireland increased from 1.8929 million to 2.5745 million over the past decade. Picture: Damian Coleman

There are many negatives in the Irish economy at present with the poorly performing housing market probably top of the list. But, one very positive feature of the economy, is the performance of the labour market. We are close to full employment, the number of jobs in the economy continues to grow despite recent tech sector job cut announcements and several sectors have labour shortages.

In the final quarter of 2022, the EU unemployment rate was 5.9% compared to Ireland’s 4.1%. However, Ireland was not the best country. Four countries Czechia, Netherlands, Malta and Poland were each below 3%, and another four, Bulgaria, Germany, Hungary and Slovenia were between 3% and 3.9%. Ireland was ranked ninth of the 27 countries. At the other end of the scale, Spain’s unemployment rate was 12.7% and Greece’s was 11.8%. Italy was 7.8% and France 6.8%.