Highest level of employment ever seen in Ireland

Highest level of employment ever seen in Ireland

RecruitAuto.ie welcomes the latest update on the Irish labour market in an excerpt from the latest Motor Industry Review. The report by economist Jim Power for the Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI).

The report tells us that the labour market continues to perform very strongly. In the year to the end of the first quarter, the number of people in employment increased by 81,200 or 3.7% to reach 2.3 million. This is the highest level of employment ever seen in Ireland.

Fig. 2 – The number of people unemployed stood at 109,700 in June, which represents a decline of 246,600 on the high of February 2012. The unemployment rate in June declined to 4.5% of the labour force, which is the lowest level since February 2005.

In the 7-year period from Q1 2012 to Q1 2019, total employment in the economy increased by 23.5% or 438,700. The construction sector recorded the largest absolute increase by sector over the period, with growth of 71.3%.

However, it is important to note that the labour market recovery is broadly based from a sectoral perspective. This is in contrast to the last boom in the labour market in the period up to 2007.

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