Irish Economy 2013: Only growth in Ireland is in freelance 'jobs'

Irish Economy 2013: In common with many other countries the only jobs growth by status in Ireland in recent times has been in freelance 'jobs.'

"The most recent employment numbers show that 20,000 additional people were at work in quarter one 2013 compared with the same period last year," said Michael Noonan, finance minister, on July 4th last. "Looking deeper into the numbers, the private sector is adding about 2,000 jobs per month."

Richard Bruton, jobs minister, has also bragged about 2,000 jobs being created in the private sector every month.

Fodder for the gullible but "looking deeper into the numbers" absent the prism of ministerial distortion, the Q1 2013 Quarterly National Household Survey [pdf, page 16], shows that the total of 20,500 additional jobs in the 12 months to March 31, 2013, which were part-time as full-time job numbers fell, is comprised of self employed without employees at 15,800 and the 'Assisting relative' category of 3,700. So 19,500 of the 20,500 jobs could be termed freelance and working 1 hour for pay a week is considered employment according to the International Labour Organization standard.

Retired civil servants on nixers are employed!

Finfacts, July 4th report: Irish Economy 2013: 499,300 on Live Register and in activation schemes in June

Buttonwood, the Economist columnist, in a blog post this week quotes research from Dhaval Joshi of BCA Research, that the median hourly earnings for the self-employed in the UK are ?5.58, less than half the ?11.21 earned by employees..."Between 2008 and 2012, there was a 431,000 increase in the number of people working on their own, and a 66,000 fall in the numbers of those self-employed who had staff working for them. As Mr Joshi remarks: 'Put bluntly, Britain has created an army of underpaid freelancers.'

This shows up in the occupational breakdown of the new freelancers. In the period March 2011 to March 2013, 64% of the new self-employed were managers or professionals; a lot of them work in the information and communication trades, or in admin and support services. There has been a big fall in the proportion of self-employed in the skilled trades - - the plumbers and carpenters who might be deemed to be 'natural' freelancers."

Source: http://www.finfacts.ie/irishfinancenews/article_1026293.shtml

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