Exporters’ jobs - Figures give some cause for optimism

Exporters created more jobs last year than in any of the previous six years and this — dare we call it a green shoot? — cannot but be welcomed.

Anything that reduces our dreadful unemployment rate is to be treasured, as is any indication that we might, in the fullness of time, redress the draining imbalance between exporting goods or services and exporting people forced to leave to find work and build new lives abroad.

Yesterday Enterprise Ireland reported that Irish exporting companies created 3,804 jobs in 2012 and, even though this figure is tiny when compared to the 432,300 people on the live register, it is far, far more welcome than the by now usual announcement that the momentum continued in the opposite direction and that jobs had been shed in the sector.

The agency stated that employment in client companies stood at 172,000 last year and that 147,000 of these are full-time positions. At a moment when so many national economies are struggling, and competing so very vigorously for all inward investment, these figures are reassuring. It is also an indication that this country is rebuilding credibility and that we can compete successfully on the international stage. We should not underestimate how our relative stability and the very painful process of confronting overspending have contributed to this relatively happy situation.

They also represent a considerable achievement for Enterprise Ireland and its staff who do so much unseen and unheralded work to help open doors for the companies creating and sustaining these jobs.

The figures re-emphasise, though, that our domestic economy and the export sector have different stories to tell. One is a cause for some strengthening optimism, the other for something less welcome, something more like relief than optimism — but that may yet turn into optimism.

The ISME Business Trends Survey for the last three months of 2012 highlights that divergence and exporters’ and non-exporters’ crystal balls promise very different things. Exporters are confident, recording a 19-point increase (up 20) in their confidence ratings, and their expectations are up 26 to 18 points.

However, retailers’ profit expectation is stuck in the doldrums, remaining at an uninspiring -39. Though not polar opposites, and even if the truth is something in between these figures, it would be a gamechanger if circumstances were altered to allow retailers be almost as optimistic as exporters.

Investment intentions show though that money is available and that some businesses are prepared to spend. These have shown increases in investment from +4 to +18, while future investment is up seven points to +16 points. SMEs are trying to change and are investing either to survive or expand. Thankfully, yesterday’s figures suggest that SMEs linked to export businesses will see a return on their investment and hopefully create even more invaluable jobs.

All of this represents the unavoidably long, slow, and tentative spade work involved in trying to rebuild this economy. Yesterday’s figures and the growing confidence of our export sector augur well for the year ahead. They may not represent spectacular change but they may just signal the moment the tide has stopped rising but not yet turned.