Ireland’s rapid pace of jobs growth continues into 2024

This week’s CSO data showing a 0.7% gain in employee numbers to 2.47 million, adds to the evidence the labour market continued to grow rapidly in early 2024. Remarkably, Irish employment is now 14% above pre-pandemic levels. This exceptional performance has been facilitated by net inward migration, although skills shortages and other bottlenecks (not least in housing) are clearly a growing constraint. That said, given the healthy start to 2024, our forecast employment growth would slow to a 1.6% this year (from 3.4% through 2023) now looks increasingly conservative.

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Bank of Ireland Economics Weekly 19 April 2024