28,400 new self-employed professionals in Ireland during Q3 2013

The latest Quarterly National Household Survey (QNHS) for the third-quarter (Q3) of 2013 shows that 58,000 jobs were added in the 12 months leading to Q3 2013, with 28,400 classified as self-employed without employees.
 
Encouragingly, the number of unemployed fell by 12.8 per cent in the year leading to Q3 2013, bringing the official number of people unemployed in Ireland down to 282,900.
 
The rise in self-employment at a time of restricted consumer demand is a clear indication of a challenging jobs market.
 
The most significant rates of increase were recorded in the Agriculture, forestry and fishing industry (29.3 per cent), the Accommodation and food service industry (11.9 per cent) and the Professional, scientific and technical industry (10.8 per cent).
 
Fergal O’Brien, chief economist of IBEC, said: "This is the strongest evidence yet that our great recession is well and truly behind us.
 
"Businesses are much more confident about the economic outlook and they are hiring again in large numbers. While the GDP numbers have been disappointing so far this year, the jobs trend is the best indicator of real economic activity.
 
"Right now our labour market is really humming. Almost all of the new jobs (54,000 of the 58,000) have been full-time positions and this is evidence of the renewed optimism of Irish employers."
 
David McNamara, economist at Davy, believes the result of the latest QNHS shows that current unemployment forecasts in 2013 and 2014 may now appear "too pessimistic".
 
"More importantly, today’s data provides further hard evidence that the Irish economy bounced back in the second half of this year," added McNamara.
 
"We would expect the strong rise in employment to drive consumer spending in H2 and into 2014, so we are happy to leave our above-consensus forecasts for GDP unchanged at 1% in 2013 and 2.5% in 2014.

"If anything, our current unemployment forecasts of 13.7% in 2013 and 12.8% in 2014 now look too pessimistic, so we would expect to revise down those estimates in our next forecast."

Last updated: 28th November 2013