The caress of optimism - From IDA acorns great things grow

WE all know how disappointing it can be when someone prematurely points to what they believe, or want us to believe, are the “first green shoots of recovery”.

Though we know, and as this month’s re-emerging daffodils confirm, winter always comes to an end it is easy to understand why every scrap of good news is tempered with a glance over the shoulder at the enormity of the challenge facing the euro, the cliff-hanging European and world economies, debt burdens — self-incurred or not — and Ireland’s place in the great, darkening drama.

Nevertheless, yesterday’s report from the Industrial Development Authority (IDA) that Ireland, through the organisation’s sterling efforts, had attracted a record number of investors last year is a genuine cause for real if balanced optimism.

The organisation reported that, almost in defiance of the global economic decline, 148 investment packages came to Ireland in 2011. An icing-on-the-cake detail that should give all of us the slightest caress of reassurance is that there was a 30% rise in the number of companies investing here for the first time.

When the tooth-and-claw battle for inward foreign investment is considered these figures represent a considerable achievement and translate positively into the hardest currency of all — new jobs.

IDA client companies created over 13,000 jobs last year, more than 2010’s 10,897. Unfortunately, 6,950 jobs were lost at IDA-endorsed operations, leading to a net gain of 6,114 jobs. Another welcome caress of reassurance is the fact that the number of job losses from client companies was 25% below the 2010 rate.

Yesterday’s Central Statistics Office data — that dole queues shortened slightly last month, with a 3,300 reduction in the number of people signing on — is good news, too. Despite this positive, if small, adjustment there are still 443,200 people claiming unemployment or jobseekers’ benefits. This represents 14.3% of the workforce, down from 14.4% in November.

The number of long-term claimants — those on the dole for a year or more — rose by more than 25,000 since the same time last year to 180,798. Unfortunately for this group most of the jobs created by IDA-linked companies were in the ICT, life sciences, financial services, business services or digital media sectors. This underlines again the need for retraining if this dehumanising cycle is to be broken. It also points to the urgency of reviewing our education system to ensure that Ireland Inc can avail of the opportunities offered by these sectors by providing the kind of workforce these enterprises depend on.

All of these positive details are overshadowed by the uncertainty surrounding the future of the euro. If it survives we will survive and, eventually, hopefully reach a new kind of prosperity. In the meantime, as we look on as helpless but dependent observers, all we can do is celebrate successes like the IDA’s as they are, like the daffodils, the promise of better things to come.