Sinking into the depression of our recession

IN January this year, then Employment Minister Micheál Martin, not for the first time, said the secret to Ireland’s economic growth lay in ‘high-end’ high-skilled manufacturing rather than the traditional low-cost unskilled area.

The last nine months have proved that Ireland is not capable of holding onto either category.

Manufacturing jobs have been lost at a rate of 130 per week since the start of the year, a total of just under 5,000 job losses due to the economic downturn or because they have chosen to move their operations to a cheaper cost base.