Unemployment question

deleriumtremens

Suppose unemployment in this country reaches, lets say, 15%. What would such a figure mean for the yongest members of the workforce, say 16 to 25 years old ie. what percentage of that age group would likely end up unemployed?
I take it that there are going to be many college graduates in the next few years unable to find employment, even in menial jobs unrelated to their qualifications.
I also assume that those young people who would previously have opted to go for a trade would have a very high rate of unemployment as they struggle to find work in a trade or even in unskilled labour.
I'd also take into account that emmigration is not as safe an option as it once was.
Personally, myself and many of my friends are either finding it tough to get work or are seeing our hours slashed dramtically. It seems that every year more young people are going to be added to the pile of people looking for work and make it more difficult in anyone to find it.

So what would ye knowledgeable people of the economics forum predict. Would 30 % unemployment in this group seems very high?

Tbh I don't know, but if I have time tonight I will have a look for some unemployment by sector data from CSO.

I'll pop it here. Might be interesting.

snubbleste

The latest live register figures show that 70,587 people under 25 years are signing-on out of 327,861
That's around a fifth of the live register figure.

2006 Census shows 632,732 aged 15-24 in the state ..
aarggh i'll await zaraba's analysis

Fat_Fingers

I don't think it would be all doom and gloom for young people. Yes, unemployment would be higher then in last 2-3 years. Yes, not that many young people will be able to afford "doing Oz" for a year after the college as not many parents will co-finance it with donations. Jobs there are also tin on the ground specially for groups on work permit for 6 months only (in one job)
On the other side young people starting wage expectation will be lower. Employers will have a field day. Meaning, they will "restructure business model", make a few of the old clogs redundant and save yourself 50+ K on each wage. Then employ young one in different department for 20K and transfer some of the work on new person that old workers were doing but now "consolidated" in new role.. And hey presto you have 2 young guys loaded with work that 4 people older age used to do for double money.

Fat_Fingers

Fat_Fingers wrote: »

On the other side young people starting wage expectation will be lower. Employers will have a field day. Meaning, they will "restructure business model", make a few of the old clogs redundant and save yourself 50+ K on each wage. Then employ young one in different department for 20K and transfer some of the work on new person that old workers were doing but now "consolidated" in new role.. And hey presto you have 2 young guys loaded with work that 4 people older age used to do for double money.

Increased productivity!!!

The comparative economic performance of the UK is probably more important than ever, in this era of Ryanair and Skype. Anecdotally there seems to better opportunities for graduates in the UK, than in Ireland at the moment.

leninbenjamin

Fat_Fingers wrote: »

Employers will have a field day.

hardly a field day when they can barely keep things ticking over. might be able to say this about some of the large monopolistic multinationals... but even then revenues are down almost everywhere across the board and things are still looking grim in the medium term.

Fat_Fingers

Deleted User wrote: »

Increased productivity!!!

Hehehe, glad you spotted that.

Fat_Fingers

leninbenjamin wrote: »

hardly a field day when they can barely keep things ticking over. might be able to say this about some of the large monopolistic multinationals... but even then revenues are down almost everywhere across the board and things are still looking grim in the medium term.

Yes, i was been simplistic but as pressure grows there is a real drive to reduce wage cost and 10% cut will not be enough. However, for profitable private sector there will be still drive to reduce cost because of the competition. This is basically fine line between how to stay with in law and keep your existing staff motivated.

deleriumtremens

deleriumtremens wrote: »

Suppose unemployment in this country reaches, lets say, 15%. What would such a figure mean for the yongest members of the workforce, say 16 to 25 years old ie. what percentage of that age group would likely end up unemployed?
I take it that there are going to be many college graduates in the next few years unable to find employment, even in menial jobs unrelated to their qualifications.
I also assume that those young people who would previously have opted to go for a trade would have a very high rate of unemployment as they struggle to find work in a trade or even in unskilled labour.
I'd also take into account that emmigration is not as safe an option as it once was.
Personally, myself and many of my friends are either finding it tough to get work or are seeing our hours slashed dramtically. It seems that every year more young people are going to be added to the pile of people looking for work and make it more difficult in anyone to find it.

So what would ye knowledgeable people of the economics forum predict. Would 30 % unemployment in this group seems very high?

Hi, just have a quick flick through the stats on CSO, I haven't looked at the SAPS data (as it hates me! and it doesn't really offer time series but I will look tonight).

Instead I've popped up employment by sector as this will let you see where the majority of people are employed.
I can then download the two most recent SAPS unemployment stats tonight and see if there is any time series on sectoral unemployment. I haven't seen any on cso yet.

Also, I am very sure that the ESRI would have papers out on this.

I'm a little busy at the minute but will have more time from after 6 tonight.

Also, plot of the live register since 1983.

gurramok

Fat_Fingers wrote: »

On the other side young people starting wage expectation will be lower. Employers will have a field day. Meaning, they will "restructure business model", make a few of the old clogs redundant and save yourself 50+ K on each wage. Then employ young one in different department for 20K and transfer some of the work on new person that old workers were doing but now "consolidated" in new role.. And hey presto you have 2 young guys loaded with work that 4 people older age used to do for double money.

I see where you're coming from. Problem is traning costs of the replacement person as that experience is lost and how would it affect business?
Redundancy costs are another issue.

From experience and i'm sure many here old enough can remember, back in the heydays pre 1995, it was a case of who you knew rather than what you knew when you left school as there was no hope of getting a job, either the dole for a few years or emigrate.

My old secondary school teachers blamed overpopulation as a fault!:rolleyes:

Those leaving college would rely on big companies to employ them as its those companies that have the means to run graduate programmes but they too are cutting back. Along with decimated trades so yes, its going to be very tough for the class of '09.:mad:

deleriumtremens

gurramok wrote: »

I see where you're coming from. Problem is traning costs of the replacement person as that experience is lost and how would it affect business?
Redundancy costs are another issue.

From experience and i'm sure many here old enough can remember, back in the heydays pre 1995, it was a case of who you knew rather than what you knew when you left school as there was no hope of getting a job, either the dole for a few years or emigrate.

My old secondary school teachers blamed overpopulation as a fault!:rolleyes:

Those leaving college would rely on big companies to employ them as its those companies that have the means to run graduate programmes but they too are cutting back. Along with decimated trades so yes, its going to be very tough for the class of '09.:mad:

This is so true. Granted I was only a child in those days but my parents have often told me that this was the case. Also, I have just realised that all of my close friends who have a job, part time or otherwise, got it as a result of a family connection. Due to me not having many family connections, I am finding it extremely tough to even get word back from employers to whom I apply fo work.
I am sure that for the next while, even people who do really well in college but have few familial connections in business or work will have little chance of obtaining employment.

SkepticOne

deleriumtremens wrote: »

So what would ye knowledgeable people of the economics forum predict. Would 30 % unemployment in this group seems very high?

In France, unemployment disproportionately affects the young as well as marginalized groups like North Africans. This was believed to be one of the causes of the riots of 2005. France's labour laws favour those in jobs over those trying to get jobs.

Ireland has a freer labour market than France so this may help the situation here somewhat, though if you have never had a job, you will still find it hard to get one in the current climate.

Another thing that might work against the interest of young people trying to get experience is the relatively high minimum wage. You won't have the option to work for next to nothing to get your foot in the door and gain experience.

nesf

SkepticOne wrote: »

In France, unemployment disproportionately affects the young as well as marginalized groups like North Africans. This was believed to be one of the causes of the riots of 2005. France's labour laws favour those in jobs over those trying to get jobs.

Ireland has a freer labour market than France so this may help the situation here somewhat, though if you have never had a job, you will still find it hard to get one in the current climate.

Another thing that might work against the interest of young people trying to get experience is the relatively high minimum wage. You won't have the option to work for next to nothing to get your foot in the door and gain experience.

Well generally speaking, the older you are the more likely you're a) experienced and b) have a stead and stable job.

b) to an extent protects you against unemployment though it's very much sector dependent, i.e. right now having 30 years experience as a bricklayer is a help but you're fairly likely to be out of work too.

a) makes it easier to get a job if you are out of one, though again is sector dependent.


One would expect unemployment to be more of a problem for people in their 20s than people in their 40s or 50s but stuff like which sectors are being badly effected by unemployment (some sectors are more likely to have young workers than others). Looking at the current situation you'd expect quite a lot of those in construction, hospitality and retail to be young and those three sectors are under a lot of pressure at the moment and you'd expect the majority of lay offs to come from them. I've not looked much into the statistics though so, zaraba might turn up a few contradictions to this argument.

SkepticOne

Like I say, if unemployment is high and you are just out of school or lack experience, it is going to be hard to find a job in the current climate. Other things being equal, however, laws that make it very hard make redundant estabished workers work against youth employment in addition to mere lack of experience. Obviously there's going to a lot of other factors too. In the 80's in Britain there was a lot of unemployment among older workers in the North of England when traditional industries died.

nesf

SkepticOne wrote: »

Like I say, if unemployment is high and you are just out of school or lack experience, it is going to be hard to find a job in the current climate. Other things being equal, however, laws that make it very hard make redundant estabished workers work against youth employment in addition to mere lack of experience.

Which is partially why I oppose the kind of labour laws that the French have. Such rigidities in the labour market only benefit those with jobs and seriously screw over everyone else. There are also realities that companies should be able to fire people, because not everyone turns out to be good at their job after given enough time to learn the ropes.

Right, firstly apologies. Only finished up what I was doing a few minutes ago.
I've had a look on the CSO website but I can't find unemployment by industrial sector in a time series dataset.

What I have done instead is use the 2006 SAPS (Small Area Population Statistics) dataset to instead tell you the levels of employment and unemployment in each Dail Constituency (I'd have done county but it takes a while to separate the other regional breakdowns out of the dataset and I figure this is close enough for what you are looking for).

So what you have is how many people were employed and unemployed in each industrial sector, I also put in those the ages at which people left full time education as I would guess (this isn't my area at all so I could be way out) that these people would be the main stock of the workforce going into a trade.

Finally, as an overview you can see the principal economic status per constituency (first time job, retired, unemployed etc).

This isn't exactly what you were looking, but it will allow you to have an idea about how many people are employed in 'at risk' industries which is kind of what you getting at.

Right, I'm off to dinner!

This data is from the 2006 Census so it is a bit out of date, if anyone else is more familiar with the cso website they might be able better data.

padz

i would say a good deal of 18-25 people will emigrate,albieit some for more briefer periods than others as they will maybe not be able to find work in england etc...but this wil bring those in that age bracket that are signing on down, of those still lookin for work as tradespeople here in ireland i would say they have a better chance of gettin work than someone older in the 40-55 age bracket as id say these mite be seen as less productive by potential employers.
imo all bets are off on this one till we see how the retraining programs pan out and the numbers / ages of those applying for them will give a good indication of those ages who are here and those who will leave to find work abroad.