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Ireland’s recession ends but unemployment soars

By
DONAL THORNTON,
IrishCentral.com Staff Writer
Published Thursday, July 1, 2010, 7:42 AM
Updated Thursday, July 1, 2010, 11:12 PM

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Social welfare queues break record highs
Social welfare queues break record highs


The latest figures released by the Central Statistics Office show that Ireland’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) rose by 2.7% in the first three months of this year.

The small growth in Ireland’s GDP may technically indicate an end to the recession but the number of people unemployed in Ireland increased from 439,100 in May to 444,900 in June.

Unemployment is up by 37,200 compared with this time last year. Unemployment now stands at 13.4%, compared to 12.9% in the first quarter of 2010.

Experts say that Ireland’s GDP rose due to a surge in exports and increased foreign investment in the region.

House prices are down by 50% from their peak in 2007 and continue to devalue. Real estate company Sherry Fitzgerald said that house prices in Dublin have dropped by over 50% while houses prices nationwide have dropped by 13% in the last year. Fortunately Sherry say that they are starting to see new signs of life in the property market.

Consumer confidence is completely shattered with credit card payments beating new spending by $70million.

Finance Minister Brian Lenihan had predicted that Ireland’s GDP would increase this summer.

“Today’s figures also show that exports are performing strongly, while consumer spending has stabilised."

It is widely hoped amongst economists that Ireland’s GDP will grow by 3% in 2011.

Ulster Bank’s chief executive said that Ireland’s recovery depends on global stability.

"It will be critically important from an Irish perspective that a global double-dip is avoided if the domestic economy is to continue along the recovery path."

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5 Comments

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WoundedKnee | Jul 06, 2010, 12:47 PM EDT
Searlit: "In an effort to keep wages low, companies hire immigrants. This hurts the overall economy in that it weakens the middle class, which is the backbone of any economy". Spot on. When I was in ireland I heard lots of stories of Polish guys living twenty to a house. They could do that because their stand of living in Poland was low, and because they were in Ireland to make money to send home. Contrast that with a young Irishman with a wife and family. He can't live rough like the foreign migrants, he has to provide a decent home for his dependents. That means he can't work for the sub-minimum wages that the irish bosses offer to the foreign migrants. Mass Immigration is the greatest disaster to hit Ireland since the Potato Famine, and unlike the Famine, it has been caused by the Irish themselves.

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FastEddy | Jul 03, 2010, 12:18 PM EDT
"Ireland’s recession ends" ... LOL

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jimmy12003 | Jul 02, 2010, 06:49 PM EDT
the coc-ksucker, who got the country into this mess, is the same di-cks who claim the recession is over! people, look around you! why would we believe these cu-nts now?

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Searlit | Jul 02, 2010, 11:28 AM EDT
In an effort to keep wages low, companies hire immigrants. This hurts the overall economy in that it weakens the middle class, which is the backbone of any economy. The world is in a mess becuse of "supply side economics" or as George Bush Sr. once said "voodoo economics".

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WoundedKnee | Jul 01, 2010, 12:33 PM EDT
As one or two other posters have pointed out elsewhere on this site, it is hard to feel sympathetic for the Irish unemployment "problem" when they continue to give jobs to huge numbers of foreign immigrants. The last time I went thru Dublin Airport I was struck by how few Irish people are working there. I saw Poles, Russians, Africans, lots of Indians and Pakistanis, Chinese of course... The Irish prefer to employ foreigners and keep their own people on welfare.

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