Public sector clerical workers paid below the OECD average
Comparing wages of public sector workers across countries poses many difficulties. Nevertheless the OECD publishes some useful information. In 2009 public sector clerical workers were paid below the OECD average. This is the latest available data (more timely data should be available in June). The...
Working and living below the poverty line: ‘The Working Poor’
16% of the Irish population lives on an income which is less than the official poverty line - about €210 per adult per week. Given a population of approximately 4.58 million people this implies that almost 730,000 live at risk of poverty. In the latest edition of the NERI's Quarterly Economic Facts...
Reforming Community Employment
Five years into Ireland's unemployment crisis the nature of our policy response has been slow. In general attention has been focused on employment creation, a worthy and necessary goal, but with limited attention on the nature of the unemployment crisis and the likely long-term impediments to...
Ireland has the sixth lowest labour costs in Western Europe
In the European Union Irish hourly labour costs (the average cost to an employer of hiring a person for an hour) are below those of Germany, Austria, Finland, Netherlands, France, Luxembourg, Belgium, Denmark and Sweden. This is according to the latest data from Eurostat, the European statistics...
Youth Unemployment remains a significant problem for Northern Ireland Economy
The Nevin Economic Research Institute has published our latest Quarterly Economic Observer (Wednesday 10th April). In it we examine the problems of Youth Unemployment in Northern Ireland. In particular: •Youth Unemployment rates of 23.8% or 24,000; •34,000 18-24 year olds are not in education...
Has long-term unemployment turned the corner?
In the first quarter of last year long-term unemployment as a share of total employment peaked at 64% and is on a downward trend. The latest evidence from the Quarterly National Household Survey the number of long term unemployed fell by 19,600 (in Q4 2012 compared to Q4 2011). So has long-term...
Women in the Economy and Labour Market
Last week, on International Women's Day, I spoke at the ICTU joint women's committee seminar on the topic of ' Women in the Economy and the Labour Market'. My paper highlighted the latest data on the current challenges facing women, North and South, as they participate in the economy, enter or leave...
Investing in our Children
Children are central to the long-term success of our society and economy; of course they are a lot more than that. However, taking the narrow focus of economic policy and long-term investments, all the evidence points towards the merit of investing in high quality professionally provided education...
Almost two-thirds of unemployed are long term unemployed
As total unemployment rates have increased across Europe the proportion of total unemployed who are long-term unemployed has increased especially since the first Quarter of 2009. The rate in the Republic of Ireland has risen sharply and overtook the EU 15 average in the last quarter of 2009...