Republican News · Thursday 7 February 2002

Jobless total jumps 7,500

BY ROBBIE MacGABHANN

There was good and bad news on the economic front last week. Coalition government leaders Bertie Ahern and Mary Harney took time out from electioneering and openings to address themselves to the more serious economic issues of the day. The bad news is that for now there is nothing new in the strategy or tactics department from the government, while all the economic indicators show an economy clearly in difficulties.

Jobless figures released last weekend show a rise of 7,554 to 159,960 in the Live Register over the five-week period between 21 December 2001 and 31 January 2002. This was the biggest rise for January since 1993.

This week tax revenue figures for January showed a 5.7% decrease on last year. The Department of Finance are depending on a 9% increase in tax revenue for the year to fund their spending plans.

Clearly all is not well. Bertie Ahern, speaking at the FÁS jobs fair Opportunities 2002 did not seem perturbed. He predicted that, "employment growth will resume in the medium term with the largest increase predicted in the services sector".

Also in the prediction business was Enterprise Trade and Employment minister Mary Harney. The minister summed up the jobs problem by asserting that "I am not going to say, however, that there won't be further difficulties in certain sectors and tourism is particularly vulnerable". Harney also returned to that well used tactic of past governments of hiding behind statistics.

Currently there are three measures of joblessness in the 26 Counties. The official unemployment measure is the Quarterly National Household Survey (QNHS). This four times a year survey of around 50,000 homes shows an unemployment figure of 79,500, considerably less than the Live Register figure of people signing on for social welfare benefit of 159,960. Predictably, the government prefers to quote the lower QNHS figure.

Harney though, took a different route and hid behind the seasonally adjusted figure, which is produced monthly alongside the Live Register data.

The seasonal figure averages those signing on over a 12-month period and at 156,300 is lower than the Live Register figure. This showed, according to Harney, that "the increase is half what is at first appears". Hey presto, with logic like that the minister will be able to magic away all the unemployed fairly quickly.

Mary Harney also claimed tha, "to an extent we were at full employment". With another 2,000 redundant Aer Lingus workers about to appear in the figures, Harney's comments are cold comfort for them or the other 150,000 people and their families who are clearly in need of work with an adequate income.