jobs – Slugger O'Toole

Is Invest NI creating new jobs or just subsidising existing jobs?

Brian O'Neill on September 28, 2021, 11:10 am

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The online fashion retailer Asos is planning to create 184 jobs at a new tech hub in Belfast. From the BBC story: The global firm, which is popular with younger people, will recruit over the next three years with 52 of the jobs in place in the first year. The company is investing £14m in the permanent base which will be operational early in 2022. Recruitment is already underway with a range of roles including in engineering and data science. …

The Great Resignation will have a profound impact on society…

Brian O'Neill on September 16, 2021, 8:07 am

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Woman in white robe writing on white paper

We are living in strange times. History tells us that after a major crisis the stock market tanks, we get a recession and unemployment goes up. This is the boom and bust cycle. Except for this time… Governments have embraced Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) and have been pumping money into the system to keep the economy afloat. The result is the markets are actually up and instead of massive unemployment but have a massive skill shortage. I am a fan …

Brexit: it’s time to stop gloating and start making some money…

Brian O'Neill on January 25, 2021, 8:37 am

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For political junkies, Brexit is the gift that keeps on giving. Every day we get a new story of how Brexit will destroy the union and cripple various sectors of the economy. For those of us who voted against it, it is hard not to have a smug I told you so attitude. But watching the excellent Ted Lasso last night one of the characters made the observation that every disadvantage is an advantage. More specifically England’s disadvantage can be …

#TheReset: Renewed focus on Apprenticeships can help young people deal

Soapbox on September 8, 2020, 8:01 am

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Richard Kirk is CEO of Belfast-based Workplus, which was set up to help businesses explore apprenticeships as a way of finding new talent or up-skilling existing employees. Here he argues that apprenticeships can help young people to “earn, learn and be part of the solution” to the oncoming economic crisis… At the end of August, some Southern states in America braced itself for Hurricane Laura – the region’s most powerful hurricane in over a century and the joint fastest in …

#TheReset – Belfast City Centre’s loss is the rest of Northern Ireland’s gain…

Brian O'Neill on September 4, 2020, 8:02 am

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I have not been in the City Centre since February and to be honest, I have no desire to rush back anytime soon. Even before the pandemic, it was not a great experience – noisy, dirty, lots of traffic, a harsh natureless environment, a notable increase in beggars and addicts. It is a pity because having a wander around the city centre was an activity that many of us grew up on. But lately, it has lost its attraction. Of …

New Economy – for better or for worse?

Jay Burbank on October 6, 2019, 8:00 am

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The ‘delivery centre’ is a uniquely 21st century project and another manifestation of how technology has radically changed the global economy. Delivery centres have been set up in nearly every industry, as I am part of the legal services industry, I have experienced most of them there. In his book ‘Tommorrow’s Lawyers,’ Susskind describes nearshoring as being: “…[s]imilar to off-shoring but the work is carried out in a neighbouring, low-cost jurisdiction that is in a closer time zone to the …

1994 assessment of Peace Dividend – likely to boost jobs in inward investment, export/cross-border trade and tourism, but losses expected in security sector [DED/22/234] #20yearrule

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on August 24, 2019, 10:30 am

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Government papers released under the 30/20 year rule (DED/22/234) document a flurry of activity around 1994 as departments tried to calculate the possible ‘peace dividend’ in terms of new employment from inward investment, exports/cross-border trade and tourism, though officials cautioned that there would be heavy job losses in the security sector if there was a “sudden cessation of violence” in Northern Ireland.

Bombardier’s CSeries US crisis gives NI an early taste of “Free Market” realities..?

Mick Fealty on September 27, 2017, 10:58 am

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I’m not sure there’s much an Executive could do in these circumstances, but the significance of the US threat to highly skilled jobs in Bombardier in Belfast was for once not lost on the news in the rest of the UK. It even made the headlines on Radio 6 Music this morning. The US Department of Commerce has clobbered 220% after it ruled that a $1 billion investment from Quebec and nearly half that amount in loans from the Federal government was used …

Bombardier to cut 20% of its workforce in Northern Ireland…

Mick Fealty on February 18, 2016, 9:53 am

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There’s been a decline in Bombardier’s business globally (not just NI). Specifically the new C Series jet has run into commercial trouble, not least because the fuel efficiency it hoped would be a strong selling point has been neutralised by the oil price collapse. According to the BBC… Bombardier Vice-President Michael Ryan said: “The whole global aerospace world is looking at how they can optimise their costbase and that includes going to what we would call lower cost countries. “If we want …

2015 is looking bleak on the jobs front…

Brian O'Neill on March 4, 2015, 5:59 pm

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Education Minister John O’Dowd has said schools will likely see 500 job losses for teachers and 1,000 for non-teaching staff due to £28m cuts to his budget. Meanwhile we keep churning out student teachers with no work for them. Also today 200 jobs are to go at a call centre in West Belfast. Translink is also warning of 150 job loses, and also claiming it could go out of business. How a monopoly could go out of business is beyond …

Oh dear, UKIP’s British Jobs campaign poster gaffe

Mick Fealty on April 25, 2014, 9:56 am

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The hunt for British jobs for British workers extends to the Common Travel Area, it seems… ‘British Worker’ on UKIP posters is none other than IRISH actor David O’Rourke UKIP = The gift that keeps on giving! pic.twitter.com/pRwrdlWT6t — Drew McGowan (@TheRealMcGowan) April 24, 2014 Adds: This courtesy of The Dissenter below… UKIP repels all Boarders? Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is …

Surviving the job hunt-It’s a jungle out there!

David McCann on December 16, 2013, 9:50 pm

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I recently applied for a job (wasn’t successful) and found out that nearly 300 people applied for the position. I nearly fell off my chair when I heard about it but when you consider the floods of applications to bodies such as the PSNI for positions you really understand how it really is an employer’s market. For any university graduate or person who has lost a job the harsh reality of continuously applying for a job and hearing nothing back …

Emphasis on youth skills rather than qualifications the way out of recession?

Mick Fealty on March 15, 2011, 7:41 pm

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In the Republic the live register of unemployed hit the highest levels since the late 1990s. One aspect of it is the limited capacity for retraining, or training on the job. Eamon McDwyer, a local Cavan businessman told Slugger on the #RTERoadtrip that rigid enforcement of limits on jobseekers allowance an opportunity was being missed. Listen! In England, Professor Alison Wolf has been warning for some years of “a complete disintegration of the youth labour market”, as “successive governments obsessed …

Job creation: What Andy Grove giveth, Deng Xiaoping taketh away

Mack on July 2, 2010, 3:01 pm

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Excellent article (“How to Make an American Job Before It’s Too Late”) on job creation by ex-Intel CEO Andy Grove on Bloomberg. He highlights how the US tech industry has been cannibalising itself, potentially cutting America off from future streams of innovation by the pursuit of higher profit margins now. While Silicon Valley remains a hub of innovation, the jobs that spring from that innovation increasingly go to Asia and not to the USA. The story comes to mind of …

Let ten thousand jobs bloom?

Mack on June 22, 2010, 10:03 am

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Brian Cowen confirmed this morning the government are aggressively pursuing a Chinese investment project that could bring up to 10,000 jobs to the midlands. Very early stage process by the sounds of things, and I’m sure we’ll face stiff competition, but here’s hoping. From RTE – Taoiseach Brian Cowen has confirmed today that he has held talks with potential investors and promoters behind a multi-million euro international project aimed at attracting major Chinese investment to the midlands. The project Mr …