Simon Barry: Look to the labour market to better understand the health of the Irish economy 

Analysis of the first three quarters of 2023 confirms the decline in GDP last year was indeed about the multinationals, but the labour market offers much better news

CSO revisions leave the jobless rate at 4.3% for 2023 as a whole, marking the second-best year in 26 years of available data.

Incoming news on the performance of the Irish economy has acted as a stark reminder of the care needed when interpreting some key economic indicators. 

Most notably, the early or “flash” estimate of real GDP for the fourth quarter of last year recently released by the Central Statistics Office showed a fifth consecutive quarterly contraction in the volume of total output.