A great success: Prediction of 80,000 jobs

GROWING exchequer returns, increased retail activity, and an active housing market may be indications that our economic recovery continues apace, but a falling unemployment rate is the real acid test of policy and sentiment. 

New jobs are the meat on the bone that can change this society and improve the lives of tens of thousands of people.

Therefore, it is very easy to welcome the prediction from Ibec that 80,000 more people will be in work by the end of this year.

This would indicate an increase of 180,000 in the number of people in jobs in the four years to the end of 2016 and would represent an unemployment rate of just above 8%, almost half the 2011 15% rate.

By any measure, this is a resounding success and one hardly imaginable, much less anticipated, a few short years ago.

Despite these predictions, it is important that we achieve this success before we spend the money we expect to earn.

This may be a challenge as an election looms, but a return to the foolishness of the past would undo so much of the effort required to stabilise this economy.

DISCOVER MORE CONTENT LIKE THIS