Unemployment at 12-year low - Don’t take jobs success for granted

It is not so very long ago that the publication of unemployment figures carried a significance far beyond the immediate issue in play — the number of people unable to find work and therefore dependent on the State for basic supports. The figures were a forceful element in how wage levels were set; the higher the unemployment rate, the lower the cost of recruiting workers. That cruel pincer movement of capitalism applies as sharply as ever though very occasionally — as in our tech sector where pay rises are three times the national average — to employees’ advantage.

The job statistics were once regarded as a kind of judgment on how far society had advanced or regressed. They were often the prism, an unforgiving, unavoidable prism through which Government policies and, lest it be forgotten, our commitment to social justice were judged. The passage of time and the once unimaginable economic development underpinned by Ireland’s EU membership and foreign investment — as well as native innovation — have changed the atmosphere around the publication of these figures.