Low Pay &Low Income: some insights on ‘The Working Poor’
Earlier this year Eurostat, the EU Statistics Agency, released data on the number of low-paid workers in Ireland and across the EU. Their analysis defines low-earnings in relative terms measured as those earning two thirds or less of the national median gross hourly earnings. Median earnings are the...
Northern Ireland Discretionary Income to fall by 20%
Discretionary income is the income that households have left over after taxes and spending on essential household necessities like accommodation, food and fuel. The report therefore captures the falling income in Northern Ireland and the rising cost of living. In Particular over the last five years...
Once again, Unemployment not the full picture
Figures released today showed a further drop in unemployment of 5,000 in Northern Ireland over the last three months, bringing the unemployment rate down to 7.3% as opposed to 7.7% for the UK as a whole. While some may take comfort from these figures, as this blog has pointed out before, the full...
Monday Blog: Assessing the impact of Budget 2014
An economist was once asked to assess the impacts of the French Revolution of 1789 to which she replied 'it is too early to say yet'. Budget 2014 may very well fall into this category. In some ways like an impressionist painting in the Art Gallery the viewer has to stand back and ponder it all. Much...
Monday Blog: Is it really €2.5 billion ?
Having spent 5 years now in the austerity trenches another few hundred yards seems surmountable especially when the casualities are counted as €2.5 billion instead of €3.1 billion in 'fiscal adjustments' (cuts to spending or increases in tax neither of which is nice). But, €2.5 billion is still €2.5...
Retraining and Activating the Distant Unemployed (paper)
External event contribution p>Across Europe the socio-economic impact of the recent recession has left no greater scar than on the labour market and in particular on the large numbers who have found themselves long-term unemployed. Over that period Ireland rapidly moved from full-employment (4%) to high unemployment (almost 14...
Long-term unemployment stable as a share of total unemployment
The share of long-term unemployed in the Republic of Ireland, as a share of total unemployment, has remained stable. Over the past year unemployment has be trending downward due to a combination of job creation, migration, and statistical alterations made by the Central Statistics Office. If the...