Cork Economics

The annual European Growth and Jobs Monitor (EGJM) report was released today showing a startling difference between the Ireland of 2007 and the Ireland of 2008.  The EGJM measures competitiveness in 14 European countries.  Ireland has moved from among the top rankings in this report to near the bottom.  The EGJM describes Ireland as having “fallen the fastest and the hardest”, of the countries studied, in the current economic crisis. 

The EGJM ranks countries on 6 sub indicators:

·        Economic Growth;

·        Productivity Growth;

·        Employment;

·        Education and Human-Capital;

·        Investment;

·        Sustainability of Public Finances.

The EGJM of 2008, based on figures from 2007, is available here.  In this report Ireland was ranked in fourth place overall; performing remarkable well in most of the six sub indicators analysed.  However, move on to 2009 and the results, based on data from 2008, show a different picture (report available here).  Ireland has fallen to 13^th place out of the 14 countries analysed; with only Italy’s performance lagging behind Ireland’s.  This is due to deterioration in Ireland’s economic growth, employment and public finance sub indicators.  The actually fall can be summed up as follows:

However, the bad news does not just stop at Ireland.  The report notes that no European country has been unaffected by the current crisis.  The report then concludes with a call for all member states to renew their commitment to the Lisbon Strategy of 2000 in the hope that this would be the key to medium/long term recovery.  Stating that:

if there was a good case to be made for the Lisbon Agenda in the first decade of this century, there is an even better case to be made for it now.