Unemployment at current rate will reach 620,400 by end of year...

Darragh29

vinylbomb wrote: »

Ah come on.
You cant just pick one set of figures and leave it at that!!
Sure if he compared them against the figures in January there would have been a 30% drop in the figures!!

The reason the January figures were so high is obvious. A load of people were let go in January as their employers didn't want to let them go just before Christmas last year. To say that the picture is much rosier now because the February figures are down on the January figures is to miss the point completely.

AlekSmart

MInd you it`s not all bleak.....Opportunities for Statisticians and Analysts are increasing exponentially as more people need the figgers figgered out for them....:)

Mizu_Ger

I think the problem is that we all know things are bad. I don't know much about economics, but taking 1 or 2 months data and using that as a basis for determining the rate of unemployment for the whole year just isn't right. If economics was that simple we'd all be experts and simplifying to this extent doesn't help when trying to fix things either.

vinylbomb

Mizu_Ger wrote: »

taking 1 or 2 months data and using that as a basis for determining the rate of unemployment for the whole year just isn't right.

+1

My point exactly

Darragh29

Mizu_Ger wrote: »

I think the problem is that we all know things are bad. I don't know much about economics, but taking 1 or 2 months data and using that as a basis for determining the rate of unemployment for the whole year just isn't right. If economics was that simple we'd all be experts and simplifying to this extent doesn't help when trying to fix things either.

Well whatever convoluted way they are using at the moment isn't working because every single forecast they have issued in the last 2 years has been subsequently thrown out the window in its entirety.

vinylbomb

vinylbomb wrote: »

In normal developed Western economies, the percentage of the workforce employ in the construction industry is about 8%

At the end of 2007, in Ireland it was 21%

Darragh29 wrote: »

The reason the January figures were so high is obvious.

Righto. But then by that logic, if you read the quote here, all the other job losses were expected at some stage too once the building boom ended....................

vinylbomb

Darragh29 wrote: »

Well whatever convoluted way they are using at the moment isn't working because every single forecast they have issued in the last 2 years has been subsequently thrown out the window in its entirety.

So has every single forecast ever made. As will be yours!

Its an indicator of the future based on past figures, unless you're the Doc and Marty Mc Fly you wont know precisely what will happen ..............

nhughes100

I think the phrase you are looking for is seasonally adjusted. I would accept that 400-450 thousand could be on the dole by the end of the year which is a bad enough situation but people are going to emmigrate, immigrants are going to leave, the hospitality industry always lets a lot of casual workers go after Christmas but will take on again during the Summer. Don't forget this could be skewed again by people signing on for 2 days a week who are on 3 day weeks, shortened hours etc.

Darragh29

vinylbomb wrote: »

So has every single forecast ever made. As will be yours!

Its an indicator of the future based on past figures, unless you're the Doc and Marty Mc Fly you wont know precisely what will happen ..............

Forecasting isn't about knowing "exactly what will happen". It is about coming up with a somewhat reasonable picture of what could be expected to occur in the future, based on looking at what has historically happened in the past.

vinylbomb

vinylbomb wrote: »

Its an indicator of the future based on past figures

Darragh29 wrote: »

It is about coming up with a somewhat reasonable picture of what could be expected to occur in the future, based on looking at what has historically happened in the past.

I believe thats almost exactly what I've said previously.

You appear to be trashing Cowen for doing exactly what you have asked for.

You said you wanted a worst-case scenario presented, thats not a reasonable picture by any standards.

He's presenting the figures as they are. Not a doomsday scenario, but an adjusted figure, to account for other factors as were mentioned by a previous poster.

Darragh29

vinylbomb wrote: »

I believe thats almost exactly what I've said previously.

You appear to be trashing Cowen for doing exactly what you have asked for.

You said you wanted a worst-case scenario presented, thats not a reasonable picture by any standards.

He's presenting the figures as they are. Not a doomsday scenario, but an adjusted figure, to account for other factors as were mentioned by a previous poster.

Well here's what I'm saying. We'll revisit this thead at the end of the year and we'll see what figure was more representative of the situation, the 450,000 figure or the 620,000 figure.

Only 6 months ago, the notion that unemployment would go through 10% was laughed at. According to everyone, it just couldn't happen.

vinylbomb

Grand, lets do that.

If only to prove that some stats are better than other stats, but not all stats

Daithinski

nhughes100 wrote: »

... but people are going to emmigrate, ...

It would appear that alot of the ones who left for Australia are now on their way back here (to the dole). As the Australian economy contracts the first ones to be let go are recent foreign immigrants. ie a whole bunch of Irish.

Its hard to know what impact this will have on the dole figures but it certainly won't help.

The immigrants who are here, who will be leaving will NOT help the irish jobless situation as they are leaving because they have no job.

Although it might mean less dole payments for the government to give out but it won't create any jobs.

When a jobless immigrant leaves, it will not create a job for anybody else.
Probably the opposite. Presumably they are buying stuff / renting etc when they are here, (keeping people in work).

The true jobless figure will more likely be between Cowens 450k (the government has underestimated everything so far, so you can bet this is too) and the 620k the OP said. Around 550k maybe?

Do the government figures include all the "self employed" unemployed (self un-employed?) that are getting a payment from the HSE rather than directly through social welfare?

If not, then the actual unemployed might already be at the 450k mark. If this is the case the figure of 620k might not be too far off the mark. Who knows?

vinylbomb

Daithinski wrote: »

Who knows?

Well, you've hedged your bets fairly effectively there, in a fantastic display of fence-sitting!;)

I'm joking dude.

IMHO worst case scenario you're looking at about 515-520k on the dole.
If it goes beyond that the country would be ruined financially.

Probable scenario is between 450-480k

Highsider

yoshytoshy wrote: »

Relax the cax ,businesses always suffer at end of year ,things always pick up in march/april.

Mr. Cowen what you doing on boards?

vinylbomb

Daithinski wrote: »

When a jobless immigrant leaves, it will not create a job for anybody else.
Probably the opposite. Presumably they are buying stuff / renting etc when they are here, (keeping people in work).

But when a jobless immigrant (that is on the dole, the point of the stats we are arguing) leaves it is one person less on the dole, hence the figures will come down as the Polish etc bolt off home. I read a report that there is something like 2000 a week forecast to leave across the year.

Daithinski wrote: »

Do the government figures include all the "self employed" unemployed (self un-employed?) that are getting a payment from the HSE rather than directly through social welfare?

I don't know, but I would have thought that if they currently don't, why would they int he future?

yoshytoshy

Highsider wrote: »

Mr. Cowen what you doing on boards?

If only I had his money ,I could buy a tank and get them out of the dail;)

Highsider

For what it's worth driving around this morning listening to the radio several economists on newstalk said they all expect the jobles total by years end to reach well over 550,000. They said the only thing that will stop this is mass emigration which is likely to only kick in September onwards. Imo i'd tend to agree and can see 600,000+ on the live register by January 2010 .

vinylbomb

Highsider wrote: »

They said the only thing that will stop this is mass emigration

This will have to happen anyway IMO, due to the numbers that were working in construction that will have to either re-skill or leave, I'd imagine most will leave.

Darragh29

Daithinski wrote: »

The true jobless figure will more likely be between Cowens 450k (the government has underestimated everything so far, so you can bet this is too) and the 620k the OP said. Around 550k maybe?

I think we will be extremely lucky if at the end of the year, the number of people out of work starts with a 6.

What people here don't seem to get is that these jobs that are being lost, there is no chance of them being replaced in the short term. Also, the outlook on several fronts is just not good at all.

I get the impression that some people here think that we are on the way out of this now and the worst is behind us and give it another 6 months and we'll be grand. The truth is that we are not even into this yet, the most optimistic folks I know who are running their own businesses are looking around saying, "I don't know what is going on here but I don't like the look of it one bit".

The government simply don't have a handle on this. They have no strategy to stop jobs being lost and even less of a strategy to create new jobs. Whatever chances they had of developing one, they are being overtaken now by exchequer returns and are now dealing with a budget as a priority which is a reactive instrument to a worsening financial problem.

vinylbomb

Theres 2,735,888 people of working age (defined as 18-65, figures from 2006 census).

650,000 IMO is just too high a figure. I feel that the bulk of the job losses have occurred, the figures may drift out to 500,000 by the end of the year, but I think thats unlikely. Thats not to say that the figures will come down, they won't, but they wont go beyond half a million. Again, IMHO.

Daithinski

vinylbomb wrote: »

Theres 2,735,888 people of working age (defined as 18-65, figures from 2006 census).

650,000 IMO is just too high a figure. I feel that the bulk of the job losses have occurred, the figures may drift out to 500,000 by the end of the year, but I think thats unlikely. Thats not to say that the figures will come down, they won't, but they wont go beyond half a million. Again, IMHO.

If the current rate of unemployment is 10% and this number equals 354,000 then is 100% 3,540,000? Which would be the working population.

(Did I do this right? Or have I missed something?)

If so there's another 800,000 potential workers / dole drawers (delete as appropriate) into the pot for you.:p

vinylbomb

Daithinski wrote: »

If the current rate of unemployment is 10% and this number equals 354,000 then is 100% 3,540,000? Which would be the working population.

Ok, I found some slightly newer figures:

Ireland, Population 4,156,119 (July 2008 est.)
Age structure:
0-14 years: 20.9% (male 448,333/female 418,476)
15-64 years: 67.3% (male 1,400,222/female 1,398,194)
65 years and over: 11.8% (male 218,459/female 272,435) (2008 est.)


So max you're looking at there (and even these are a bit high cos the figure is 15-64 year olds) is 2.8 million.

Still leaves me of the opinion that we'll end up with about 1 in 5 or thereabouts out of work.

Darragh29

vinylbomb wrote: »

Ok, I found some slightly newer figures:

Ireland, Population 4,156,119 (July 2008 est.)
Age structure:
0-14 years: 20.9% (male 448,333/female 418,476)
15-64 years: 67.3% (male 1,400,222/female 1,398,194)
65 years and over: 11.8% (male 218,459/female 272,435) (2008 est.)


So max you're looking at there (and even these are a bit high cos the figure is 15-64 year olds) is 2.8 million.

Still leaves me of the opinion that we'll end up with about 1 in 5 or thereabouts out of work.

1 in 5 = 20% out of work.

vinylbomb

Darragh29 wrote: »

1 in 5 = 20% out of work.

Correct.

Whats your point?

gurramok

Don't forget the students and those thrown on FAS courses!

You're the optimist vinylbomb with the following:

I feel that the bulk of the job losses have occurred,

How do you know?

vinylbomb

gurramok wrote: »

You're the optimist vinylbomb


How do you know?

I don't know - I am just working my assumptions based on job losses that HAD to come sooner or later in the construction industry, and the associated knock-ons. I figure unemployment will peak at about 16-18%.

I don't subscribe to the "all bad news"/"all good news" (boom/bust) mentality thats been pervasive over the last few years, sentiment (driven by the media I might add) has been swinging wildly all over the place for 4-5 years.

But to be honest, we're all just picking numbers out of our a*rses here, making wild suppositions based on guesswork at best.

As much as I "might" be right, so could Darragh29. The thing I was really challenging earlier was the fact the he was doing just that, using figures picked on their own with no correlation to any others, to produce skewed predictions for the future

Highsider

Darragh29 wrote: »

I think we will be extremely lucky if at the end of the year, the number of people out of work starts with a 6.

What people here don't seem to get is that these jobs that are being lost, there is no chance of them being replaced in the short term. Also, the outlook on several fronts is just not good at all.

I get the impression that some people here think that we are on the way out of this now and the worst is behind us and give it another 6 months and we'll be grand. The truth is that we are not even into this yet, the most optimistic folks I know who are running their own businesses are looking around saying, "I don't know what is going on here but I don't like the look of it one bit".

The government simply don't have a handle on this. They have no strategy to stop jobs being lost and even less of a strategy to create new jobs. Whatever chances they had of developing one, they are being overtaken now by exchequer returns and are now dealing with a budget as a priority which is a reactive instrument to a worsening financial problem.

This unfortunatly seems to be the big problem with peoples opinion of this "downturn"...I talk to a hell of a lot of people in my line of work on a daily basis and most seem to of the opinion "ah we'll be grand" in a couple of years. Think this country is in for a very rude awakening over the next few months as the realism of what is really going on out there takes affect.:(

Darragh29

Highsider wrote: »

This unfortunatly seems to be the big problem with peoples opinion of this "downturn"...I talk to a hell of a lot of people in my line of work on a daily basis and most seem to of the opinion "ah we'll be grand" in a couple of years. Think this country is in for a very rude awakening over the next few months as the realism of what is really going on out there takes affect.:(

I was talking to a man the other day who has just pulled down the shutters on his business. His business got through the 80's, but he said back then it was different, there was doom and gloom but banks were still lending and things somehow kept chugging along. It was hard, but there was always some work to be done here or there and there was nowhere near the same lack of confidence and there was nowhere near the same degree of fear that is out there now.

He described the current situation in Ireland as being like a state of suspended reality where people are totally consumed with fear and are afraid to do normal things like go to the pub for a drink or go out and buy stuff.

tedstriker

2 statistic charts for everyone. It's all about the trends and the trend here is dire:
Seasonally Adjusted Standarised Unemployment Rates for Ireland


Irish Live Register Figures


From 5% to 10.4% in just 12 months is a serious problem and now that the government look like they're going to increase taxes spending is going to reduce, jobs lost and a real deeper recession is going to slow this country down. The worst thing about it all is that there isn't even a country to emigrate to, if you were that way inclined.