Jobs moving forward

Jackz

Rereading the story Noelrock you are correct they were previously announced but 150 of them were hired so far this year and 300 more will be hired this year. They didn't reverse the decision.

Im not a total c**t I was alarmed by the lay offs in January especially the number of them in Cork I am just keeping an eye on the trend.

To be fair I shouldn't have posted this here maybe a thread somewhere else stickied to keep an eye on jobs lost and created would be a good idea.

cm2000

job losses have been announced continuously over the past 6 or 7 years but they are always being replaced by new ones- hense our consistently low unemployment rate-. also youre arguing against a lack of competitiveness. ive a solution..... cut wages, how many of you would appreciate that?

DublinDilbert

Hi All,

To be honest, working for a multinational that is currently pulling out of Ireland I feel that this is just the tip of the ice berg... Ireland just simply isn't competitive, and wages are just one part of it, theres the cost of land, cost of building, cost of insurance ect...

Any manufacturing jobs that require a large amount of direct labor will definitely be at risk... the likes of HP & Intel might well be ok, as they have a huge amount of automation in their processes.

There is also a lag effect in the supply chain, for example the company that i work for is leaving Ireland, all of the production lines are going to poland/slovakia, but for the short term all of the plastic components will be sourced from Ireland. Over the next 6->18 months all of these components will be re-located and made locally, this means that more business is on the way out the door, its just a matter of time.

One thing has completely masked all of the declines in manufacturing, this is the construction industry. This has provided some of the jobs for the people who have been made redundant from manufacturing, I've seen this a number of times in the last few years.. The problem is when the construction industry slows, it will expose the fact that our manufacturing base has become completely uncompetitive and unviable.

Lemming

cm2000 wrote:

ive a solution..... cut wages, how many of you would appreciate that?

Indeed ... why don't we start with benchmarking and politicians. Lead by example and what-not ...

watch that one fly ...

miju

Jackz wrote:

I would like to see Ireland continue to climb the ladder in terms of quality of jobs. I agree that it is worrying the number of people working in construction! I hope the infrasture plans will absorb some of these people as property cools down (Do you think there will be a miny poperty boom when stamp duty is confirmed confirmed after election?)

2 points:

1: Ireland is actually sliding down the job qaulity "ladder" the vast majority of new jobs being created are low paid service end jobs and in construction (as if we need to feed that beast any more)

2: there wont be a mini property boom. what they're be is the mass realisation that stamp duty is the complete red herring that it is and the cause of the property slump (soon to be crash) is simple fundamentals and a large decrease in affordibility of mortgages due to interest rate rises (of which there are at least a few more to come before they hit "normalised rates of 4.5% )

jmayo

Jackz wrote:

Look stepbar you contend we are no longer compeditive, I don't think we are compeditive when it comes to certain jobs becaue the gulf between what it costs to do business here and in other places is huge. .... I would like to see Ireland continue to climb the ladder in terms of quality of jobs. I agree that it is worrying the number of people working in construction! I hope the infrasture plans will absorb some of these people as property cools down ...

Intel are being hammered due to competition and an overall slow down in pc sales (there is no longer loads of pc's sold after Microsoft release a new OS) This is an international problem for them!

Proactor and Gamble dont match the trend in hiring in the biotech sector that I have outlined here before.

Ah is it the old chestnut about going for the high end service/technology/development jobs, but nobody ever exactly says what or where these jobs aill come from ?

I think the likes of Motorola pulling out sticks a pin in that balloon.
Actually didn't Pffizer cut back or rather sold off some of it's production capacity?

Oh while you are mentioning tough times for PC sales, keep an eye on Dell.

Why do people always trott out that job losses due to slow down in housing will be absorbed by other infrastructure areas.

Have you seen how many empty office parks are around?
Why are people knocking office blocks to build apartments if there were tenants for these office blocks? So will we be building new office blocks when we do not have tenants for existing ones?
Oh and as I am sick of asking, how many plasterers, plumbers and sparks work on road construction?
How many interior designers will be hired to furnish new schools (could ask if government ever build news schools anyway)?
How many carpet fitters or kitchen fitters will be employed building the new Private hospitals?

Jackz wrote:

...
To be fair I shouldn't have posted this here maybe a thread somewhere else stickied to keep an eye on jobs lost and created would be a good idea.

Then why did you post here and as spotted by other posters on other forums?

Was it to try and influence people with the FF party line that everything is rosey and look how we are the government responsible for the ongoing boom?
Yes, the ongoing non sustainable boom that is property, which I think FF could probably take credit for. After all look who visits the tent come July.

SeanW

"moving forward" even sounds like some lame FF catchphrase.

Jackz

Nice input there SeanW.

Jmayo, I had this debate with you before and you trot out the same stuff again. I was preaching to somebody who is simply anti-government and i left it so.

I already pointed out to you before the significant hires by other companies in the biotech sector, companies that didnt have their banker drug blocked by the FDA or have been making a product (as with the jobs in Athlone) that was killing people. You trot out the same companies as before even though you admitted that Motorolla was losing out to competition in its sector last time around.

You have quoted my post and left parts out to drive your point home!

Alot of the recent job loses have been in manufacturing do you not think that alot of those jobs are manual assembly and basic machine operation? Jobs like that cannot stay in Ireland and the quality of life of Irish people be improved. Nearly all of the jobs I originally posted are higher end jobs than those.

People cant afford houses at current prices because of the ECB interest rate increases you say miju and that will lead to an instant melt down in constuction? People need homes! Even more people will come Ireland! ECB interest rates are not set in stone forever! The construction companies can afford to make less profit! Please explain why house construction will not slow to a more normal level over time with a drop in house prices and instead will suddenly burst?

jMayo I have seen a number of schools extended and upgraded (In my home town both the primary and secondary school have been) it doesnt happen as quickly as it should and I hope what ever government are elected tomorrow follow up on their promises in that regard. Your question about plasterers, plumbers, sparks and your other language seems to infer that all house construction and maintenance of the increased housing stock will cease. I don't believe that will be the case construction will slow but not die IMHO. Nearly all government parties have committed to significantly reducing class sizes, new public hospitals (and private), new train/metro/luas lines (Which will have new stations and require signalling) thats alot besides roads that needs to be done and involves all trades.

There is a significant Renewable Energy sector emerging.

I posted it to get some debate on it, I posted it on politics.ie in reply to a post I felt was declaring doom but got no debate.

Jonny Arson

Jackz wrote:

People cant afford houses at current prices because of the ECB interest rate increases you say miju and that will lead to an instant melt down in constuction?

Yes, ECB rates are playing a part in this but in reality the fact that young FTBs are having to move out into the sticks of nowhere living in a shoebox paying up to 400k to fill FF's greedy property developer buddies' pockets is the main reason Ireland is in this property bubble mess.

Jackz wrote:

People need homes!

They sure do and those homes are already there. Estimated 250,000 empty houses in this country lying idle most of which are only for capital appreciation.

Jackz wrote:

ECB interest rates are not set in stone forever!

With the German economy getting stronger and stronger now along with other Eurozone nations it is kilely going to be a long time before the ECB rates drop barring external international events.

Jackz wrote:

The construction companies can afford to make less profit!

The sad fact you're right about that, pity about all the construction workers who will lose their jobs as a result.........

miju

Jackz wrote:

People need homes! Even more people will come Ireland!

whats your basis for that theory. you would do well to remember the investment tagline at the end of most ads "past performance is not a gaurentee of future returns etc etc"

Jackz wrote:

ECB interest rates are not set in stone forever!

while that is very true you can it is also pretty much set in stone that we wont be returning to emergency rates of 2% anytime soon. the normalised rate by the markets is considered to be somewhere between the 4 - 4.5% mark and with a resurgent German economy and the fact that Ireland is at the opposite end of the economic cycles than the rest of the EU the rates will be going higher than 4.5% despite what the vested interests in the media would say.

Jackz wrote:

Please explain why house construction will not slow to a more normal level over time with a drop in house prices and instead will suddenly burst?

the simple 2 word answer is supply & demand . now of course there is the whol "fundamentals of the market to deal with as well so heres a nice little graph from the Irish central bank showing the true fundamental value of Irish houses

Jackz wrote:

The construction companies can afford to make less profit!

of course builders make money from building and wont stop pbuilding but they key thing here is that they WILL build less and with over 280,000 directly employed you can do some scary but simple and quite logical maths using historical government data with previous build completions / construction indsutry employment levels so please try pay close attention:

in 2001 we built 52,000 houses approx and we had 180,000 directly employed in construction then again in 2002 we built 57,000 houses approx and we had 182,000 directly employed in construction. ging on full completion figures from 2006 some 260,000 where directly employed in constructoin.

****** (see figures at bottom of this post)

so now given that economists are predictiing housing output to return to the historical norm of 50,000 - 55000 by 2009 that equates to some 80,000 DIRECT JOBS LOSSES not taking into account other people are relying on income from construction activity or the landlords who are currently renting as part of the "Even more people will come Ireland! " (or migrants as I prefer to call them) who then leave to find work elsewhere leaving even more vacant property

also we have over 250,000 vacant properties that were indentified in the last census. it's estimated some 50,000-80,000 of those are holiday homes. which leaves 170,000 - 200,000 houses (3-4 normal years supply) vacant which were bought purely for speculative reasons.

now histroically prior to the boom house completions are about the 40,000 - 50,000 mark and do you know what percentage of our GNP is lost for every 10,000 less houses are constructed each year? expected output this year is down by 20,000 already and will be down even further by years end.

so to sum up Fianna Failure have precided over this countries biggest asset bubble / investment pyramid and the country is royally ****ed in the short term at the very least because of it. this of course not taking into account any of the quite large social impacts this will have either.

so thats what our employment figures are like "moving forward" but I'm sure FF have some magical cure sooner they are out of power the better for this country.

look forward to you trying to reason this one away

Jackz

I’m sorry but you havn't proved a sudden catastrophic bubble burst will occur; the process of it slowing down to a normal level is already occurring. I suppose George Lee has convinced you that this is going to happen weekly for the last 5 years. I'v already pointed out that a huge amount of infrastructure construction is on the cards and you have pretty much dismissed it out of hand.

gandalf

Jackz miji has provided actual figures all you have provided is rehashed press releases. I think he has shown quite clearly we are facing some rough times and all you can say is there are big infrastructure projects ahead. As stated already how many plasters are employed building a road. How many carpenters are needed to build a LUAS?

What about the knowledge ecomony we hear about. Failures like Media Labs don't help, especially the waste of €35 Million on another Bertie Ahern vanity trip that could have been better directed to the many Irish companies trying to innovate and compete dispute the obstacles put in place to doing business in this country.

miju

Jackz wrote:

I’m sorry but you havn't proved a sudden catastrophic bubble burst will occur; the process of it slowing down to a normal level is already occurring. I suppose George Lee has convinced you that this is going to happen weekly for the last 5 years. I've already pointed out that a huge amount of infrastructure construction is on the cards and you have pretty much dismissed it out of hand.

just to echo gandalfs comments but also to question you directly on what do you think 80,000 job losses dirctly from construction not to mention the affects on contractors / businesses , discretionary spending in general and the major battering consumer confidence would take as well in a "normalisation" of the economy is a good thing for this country when we are the largest indebted nation per head in Europe and thats down to obscenely large mortgages and the repyments on the same ? you can be sure as hell would lead to even more job losses on top of that 80,000

actually, i'm not that bothered in discussing it with you as your are obviously the bury your head in the sand type / completely ignore figures and pretend everything is fine. so i suppose you fight right in with all the other Fianna Failures

the reason for my initial posting was to completely counter your claim of everything is rosy on the jobs front "moving forward". i've done that quite well im sure and i'm sure others would be able to argue on the pharmacy and tech jobs front (im not too up on those sectors and dont like to talk about things i know nothing about) better than i could so i'll leave it at that