Thursday, April 27, 2017

Unemployment in Ireland 1983 - 2017

In yesterday's post about a recruitment fair at NCI: What a Time to be a Graduate!, I wrote about how timing is almost a "lottery" for when graduates finish College. Today's opportunities open up many possibilities for our graduates, though it was not always this way.

Figures below from Eurostat show Ireland's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate since 1983 (coincidentally the year I graduated from Trinity College):



My final year Trinity ID card (1983).
In July 1983 when I graduated the rate was recorded as 14% - the rate was on an upward spiral reaching 17.1% just 14 months later. This was the highest rate of unemployment recorded in Ireland since 1983 - not a good time to be seeking a job I think you'll agree. I postponed the inevitable by continuing on as a postgraduate student and graduated with a PhD in July 1988 - the unemployment rate was almost as bad at 16.9%. By August 1988 I was on a FÁS course. While initially this was a big come-down (PhD to a FÁS course in one month) - I never looked back as it directly lead to a career in eLearning.

According to the Central Statistics Office, the most recent unemployment figures (for March this year) show the rate at 6.4% - very much on a downward trend. While I exaggerate by stating that timing is a "lottery" when you graduate - you can see from above that the good times are back for graduates.

2 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Hi "Unknown",

      Yes - one of my middle names is "Mary", it was very common in the 1950s to give boys this as a middle name (1954 was a Marian Year).

      "Eugene" - named after Eugenio Pacelli who was Pope Pius XII.
      "Francis" - named after my granduncle Monsignor Charles Francis Hurley.
      "Mary" - named after Mary the mother of Jesus.

      Very holy!

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