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THE ECONOMIC FALLOUT from the Covid-19 pandemic could see up to 318,000 jobs being lost in Ireland, according to a stark new analysis by financial advisory firm EY.
The analysis lays out two different scenarios for how Ireland’s economy could be impacted, both of which detail signifcicant job cuts and an unprecedented contraction of the economy.
Under the ‘prolonged disruption’ scenario, which assumes a high-level of economic disruption until August, EY predicts that Ireland’s GDP could contract this year by as much as 13.1%, qualifying as a depression.
Under this scenario, 675,000 jobs could either be lost or effectively put on hold during the period of disruption, with job losses coming in at 318,000 when the disruption ends.
By contrast over the last five years, Ireland has created some 330,000 jobs.
The less severe prediction, described as ‘the base scenario’, assumes a high level of disruption up until May and predicts a GDP contraction of 7.3%.
Under this prediction, 450,000 jobs could be affected during the period with 177,000 lost once the disruption ends.
Yesterday, the Department of Social protection said there were 323,000 requests for supports from people who have lost their jobs in just 14 days.
Professor Neil Gibson, chief economist for EY Ireland said that while the human cost of the conravirus is “sadly rising every day”, the economic cost is rising too.
“The effect of this pandemic will be felt for years, if not decades due to the scale of borrowing required to see economies through the most virulent phase of the outbreak,” Gibson said.
“Early estimates from the EY Economic Eye model suggest a recession is certain, and a depression is possible if the economic restrictions need to be in force for a protracted time.”
Similar dire predictions for the economy were made by the Economic and Social Research Institute last week, which said that the pandemic was “the greatest threat that the Irish economy has faced since the financial crisis”.
Yesterday, the OECD released a report that evaluated the the initial impact of Covid-19 on the economies of some 47 developed nations.
The report predicted that Ireland’s GDP would be least affected of all of the countries analysed, although still shrinking by over 15%.
Analysts at Davy also noted yesterday that the hit Irish GDP may be relatively small compared with other EU countries because hospitality and retail only accounts for 11% of GDP.
Despite this, Davy also points out that the hit to global GDP growth and the Irish economy will be larger than expected just one week ago.
In speaking about the potential long-term effects of the widespread economic shutdown and the work-from-home procials being introduced by many companies, Gibson adds that the Irish workforce could be different when all restrictions are lifted.
“The embedding of technology to allow remote working has been rapidly accelerated, as has the adoption of online ordering,” he said.
“Many workers have seen meetings dropped from the diary or condensed into a shorter online format and there are stories of a resulting boost to efficiency and productivity. The need to socialise and the importance of face to face contact will remain but undoubtedly our ways of working will look different when the pandemic eases.”
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Well done girls. Now back to the kitchen to cook for your menfolk. There’s a 3 week pile of ironing that’s built up too.
And don’t forget the dusting
Jasus 3 weeks. They may look after there man in the bedroom too.
Just because they play football doesn’t mean they’re all straight.
Wow Beachmaster what a way to crash the party.
Not like twitter to be overly sensitive. Is there anything factually incorrect about the tweet? No. This seemingly constant need to be offended is the thing I find most offensive these days!
It must be hell to be a professional comedian nowadays. Anything you say is judged in the same way that football newbies judged every slightly negative thing that Dunphy and Giles said during Italia ’90.
Well bacoxy, ask yourself why it’s never said about men…?
That’s always a good barometer of what’s PC and what’s not.
If it’s not a standard that’s applied to both genders then there is cause for annoyance.
But as a white male living in the western world you probably don’t have to consider these things.
Hope that helps for future reference and why people are annoyed.
You came dangerously close to mentioning White privilege there.
Isn’t sexism the treatment of or perception that women are in some way inferior to men? What’s sexist about calling a woman a mother, daughter or sister?
@beano – it’s the way they did it. It’s not just that it was sexist. It was also patronising. These women didn’t stop being mothers, partners or daughters when they put on the jersey. Plus, the men don’t get tweets from the FA saying the men are going back to being sons, partners and fathers.
Whenever I read an article about a twitter outrage fest it makes me hope WW3 kicks off sooner rather than later
Factually, the vast majority of mothers I know are heroes already. They don’t need to win a football title to become one. Not winning a football title doesn’t make them less of one. Part of the problem with society is undervaluing the work of a mother, or father for that matter, in the home. They are shaping future doctors, scientists, architects, builders, leaders, parents, and yeah, footballers of tomorrow.
Similar is said about men too Abbi, just not in football because they are viewed as obscenely wealthy professionals. It’s often mentioned about GAA players heading back to milk the cows, or there were similar things said about the Irish cricket team when they took the World Cup by storm and then had to head home to normal jobs. You can’t compare male and female footballers as though they are the same because of the insane money in the men’s game, but in sports against which women’s football would be comparable sentiments like this are pretty common.
Maybe the fact that while at the world cup representing their country they were still “wives, mothers and daughters” as women are capable of being more than one thing at any given time.
Once I finish this moderately successful post I will return to be a single childless loser. :(
Twitter needs to be killed. We would be much better without it.
It annoys me when an article is supplemented by a hape of meaningless tweets from folk I’ve never heard of.
Apparently it gives it “colour”. Lazy journalism in my opinion.
*supplemented with? Damn it anyway. Where’s Tap Solny when I need her?
As you comment using your Twitter account…
According to feminists, it is offensive to acknowledge that women are a separate gender. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
please do explain this comment. where did this information come from?
PC gone mad ;-)
You’re blaming the computer? I bet the FA wished they’d though of that.
The English football fans are funny. Coming third is a decent achievement but I wouldn’t call them heroes. They always over hype themselves.
In fairness if you take a step back and look we do the same, we’re still talking about Italia 90 where we drew four games and lost one, if our women’s team came third in a World Cup we’d probably be naming streets and bridges after the players.
We think the English hype is peculiar because we get to see it as outsiders due to the fact we watch so much English TV, they’re entitled to hype their own national team if they want to it’s their own media after all, who are we to say otherwise.
Twitter outrage is like cheering in a large crowd even though you don’t know what the crowd started cheering at…
Nothing offensive here ffs!!
Stop cursing please.
Gawd! How DARE people be mildly annoyed by a thing! What kind of world do we live in where people can express their opinion freely? When will it ever end? ;_;
When our lads come back from the Rugby world cup, they ll go back to being husbands partners and sons.
This just proves there will never be a shortage of people that get offended on other people’s behalf.
Thank God they have husbands, that’s all I can say.
Because they’re absolutely shit at football.
In terms of skill the women’s world cup is the equivalent of watching Scottish League 3 football.
And if anyone has ever been unfortunate enough to have watched a game from that division then you’ll know why the average attendance is about 3 and a half people.
I’d rather listen to Serena Williams grunting for 40 minutes (the average time span of her matches) than watch a ladies football game.
There’s easier ways to get brain damage.
I’ve a strong suspicion any one of those women would make absolute sh*t out of you on a soccer pitch.
My local pub team could thrash the England’s ladies team.
At closing time.
For God’s sake relax. Let’s remember the real issue here, women’s football is shockingly bad :)
Yawn, keyboard warriors are bored obviously
…says the one who’s bored…
“three lions on a skirt……..”
Western corporate feminism at its finest.
everone of them falls into at least one of those.
A lot of PC whackjobs who completely miss the point and don’t bother their hole to do some research.
political correctness gone mental , I want my masculinity back , whatever happened to Gary Cooper , the strong silent type.
Alex Scott though…
have your say