IRISH ECONOMY MOVES FROM RECESSION TO DEPRESSION - A new survey suggests that Ireland has gone from a recession into a depression.
This is the view of UK based forecaster Oxford Economics, which has carried the first of what is promised to be regular reports on the all island economy for accountants Ernst & Young.
Neil Gibson, Senior Advisor at the Ernst & Young Economic Eye forecast unit says that the Republic of Ireland's recession is due to be far worse than Northern Ireland's and amongst the worst in Europe with a peak decline of 10% - which is defined technically as a depression. He says that people have to remember the heights that the Irish economy is falling from. He says the Northern Ireland economy has a much smaller fall predicted, but it did not reach the same heights as the Republic's economy. He says the main message of the report is the importance of disentangling the impact of the fallout of the huge construction and property boom from the slowdown in world trade. He says while this is having a negative impact on Irish exporting firms, the prospects for their recovery are much better.
Mr Gibson says it will take 12 years for employment numbers to recover to their 2007 levels. He says the real pain of a recession is not felt in GDP numbers but in the very personal impact of those who lose their jobs.
***
MORNING BRIEFS - Irish software and consulting services firm First Derivatives has announced pre-tax profits, before currency adjustments, of £5.4m sterling for 2008. This is up 13% on the figure of £4.7m the previous year. Revenues rose by 39% to £17.5m and the Newry-based firm said while it is too early to predict the outcome for the current financial year it said it expects to be able to report further progress in the first half of the year. The company is to pay a dividend of 6.65 pence per share, an increase of 15% on last year.
*** Britvic, which announced 145 job losses at the start of the year, has published half year results for their Irish operations. The figures give more than a little insight into the state of the market for the company here and reveal that its profits have gone from £4.3m sterling in the six months to mid April 2008 to no profit at all for the same period to mid April 2009. However, overall Britvic plc saw its profits increase 16% to £20m.
*** The computer and printer maker Hewlett Packard which employs around 4,000 people in Ireland, has said it will cut 2% of its global workforce or 6,400 jobs. A company spokesman here was unable to say what the impact would be for Ireland. The losses come on top of an earlier announcement to shed more than 24,000 jobs which resulted in more than 100 jobs being lost from its manufacturing operations here. Two months ago, Hewlett Packard announced it would be creating 500 jobs in County Kildare with the help of the IDA.
*** On the currency markets, the euro is worth $1.3591 US cents and 87.9 pence sterling.
