Wishing everyone unemployed a job in the new year, and hope in the meantime you can have as merry christmas as possible under the circumstances.

I am nearly 8 months unemployed now . I ran my own business for nearly five years and have 10 years retail management experience and I can’t even get a interview. I am applying for all types of jobs and I never even get a reply back. It’s very disheartening out there at the moment but doing a course with springboard that’s keeping me going. Some people do want to work !!

Might b very wrong ,But can see this lasting for a long time yet ,[hopefully not] ,Just wish all the people that are strugling now the very best for christmas x

Demand for goods and services must increase first, then supply will increase accordingly. This means job opportunities will be created to meet the rise in demand. Austerity will only suppress demand and as that is current government policy, job creation is simply impossible to achieve. There are 26 million unemployed in the EU it is not only the Irish Government that is getting it wrong. Let’s hope they all cop on before it’s too late.

Even if the worst is over (and I hope it is) there is little or no evidence of any reversal of the damage. Stats are skewed by emigration. Many in the less urban and rural parts of the country are unlikely to see jobs for some time yet. The situation is plainly appalling, nowhere less so than the Taoiseach’s own back door in Mayo where empty business buildings abound. I see a criminal waste of young people who have never had a real job and no jobs for older people made redundant in the economic meltdown. There just isn’t the work that there was in the boom years and it will be a long time before there will be again.

As someone that has been made redundant twice in the last 2 years, both times at Christmas, I think the end is a long way off yet. We need to also be aware of the mental health issues the jobless can face.

Wait until the end of January when the retailers let go the Xmas staff !

How can we be over the worst of it, in the evening echo bank of Ireland are giving away its I.T. sector or in govt speak being out sourced from IBM offices in Dublin to India and these jobs are low paid €20,798.00 per year so what does this say when we cant even keep low paid jobs in the country this govt are not just giving away our country but giving away our jobs,
Unless they have a huge Christmas present for the Irish people when they return after the Christmas break the shit will hit the fan big time.

Sadly, I think we’ve a long way to go before we hit rock bottom. And with all the emigration, it really is a case of last one left, turn off the lights.

When you hear that people on the live register has dropped it’s not because they have found a job it’s because they have left the country…. I think that the only people who should get social welfare should be made work for two or more years in this country before they can claim any state help and not just get a flight here and be able to claim…. All these people should be sent packing……. Unless they have enough funds to survive here….

Sure we have yet to see the fallout from this budget and the effect it will have on business. Not possible to be at a turning point.

It has to get worse.
The same program that led to collapse is still running the system, and the same people who said it was unsustainable then are still excluded form a realistic consideration of the possible solutions.
Even if they get it back and bubbling again, you cannot run any sane economy on speculative bubbles.
The logic of our creative/destructive neoliberal economics is the logic of Halliburton and Bechtel; spent billions of taxpayers money subsidising resource wars, and then more billions rebuilding the multiple Iraqs we have demolished. And never challenge the bully, you’ll be next if you do. We are continually reminded ‘Ireland is the most globalised economy on the planet’, but then address our economic woes with nationalist blinkers.
Not smart economics. Simple arithmetic; creating 300 jobs a week is not going to erode half a million disemployed and we cannot economically deport 100,000 p.a. as a ‘solution’.
To fix it will disturb the gluttonous insatiables who thrive on exclusivity. Technological productivity cannot be overtaken by gizmo-manufacture.
We need structural adjustement alright, but not as the IMF knows it, Skipper.

From an English article about their welfare system and attitudes http://www.lrb.co.uk/2012/12/21/john-lanchester/lets-call-it-failure (from the current London Review of Books):

“Right-wing mythopoesis on the subject of welfare seems to have worked. In effect, the Tories have been saying that the trouble with the poor is that they have too much money. This negative image of welfare – of ‘dole scroungers’ living a life of ease and luxury, blithely turning down work because they prefer a life on benefits – contains no reality, and the single most important fact about the welfare bill is largely absent from the debate: the fact that two-thirds of the welfare budget is spent on pensioners. Since pensioners have been protected from the spending cuts, this means that any reduction in the welfare budget must be drawn from the working-age population. A large fraction of this group are in work but so poor they still attract benefits. If these things were better known, the debate about welfare would be more nuanced, but the Tories clearly think that this shift in attitudes gives them a useful, potentially election-winning, stick with which to bash Labour.”

I like trains…

I know of at least 5 adults who have absolutely no interest in getting a job,instead mooching benefits to pay for kids and 3rd level education.Jobs were lost but the fact is benefits and perks to unemployment are too high (provided you have no shame or self respect)

I dont think it has reached its peak yet am not sure yet if it gets so bad as everybody dooms. Me myself searching for a job but very restricted due to being a single parent but I was very surprised IF i would be available to work FULL i could work TOMORROW. There are so many jobs in the big cities and also the people there telling me it is soo hard to get people to work for them due to unflexibility. Which I absolutely agree. Also a friend of mine in Dub was on jobsearch he had a job within 2 weeks and had 3 interviews in one day once and could have had all of the positions. Also another girl very young, no skills whatsoever and not really big interest in work got a job a few days after she started very relaxed with AIB. So things are NOT as doomy as everybody thinks – its much easier to blame all the time the bad politiicians or the outside work – what about starting with yourself and leaving Mammy in the country and move towards a job! Just dont accept that negative blaming and dooming around when the reality always STARTS WITH US!

Capitalism is finished but those who are still milking the system for bonuses and pensions are pretending things are going to change.

Surely it’s people’s negativity is keeping us in this mess! PMA guys!!! Positive Mental Attitude! – I just have to practice what I preach!

The jobs are not going to come back. There won’t be anything but short bursts of growth here and there but the way things are now there will not be anything but a consistent downwards trend!

maybe

It’s a hard one to call although my personal view is that the worst is over. I cant see the unemployment rate getting much worse. It depends on the worldwide economy picking up as domestically things are flat and keeping our low corporate tax rate. Many people are broke but plenty squirrelling money away and not spending – especially those earning good money in sheltered positions in banking and public service.

I had something relevant to say but my washing machine has just started chasing me around the kitchen :p