Delivering bad news is never easy. The Central Statistics Office (CSO) was planning to publish its latest quarterly national accounts on Friday – the ones dealing with the second quarter of 2020 and the economic earthquake that is the coronavirus – but pulled the plug at the last minute.
The agency postponed the release until Monday, indicating it needed more time to collate data. The figures are expected to show a record quarterly decline in gross domestic product, consumption and output. Leprechaun economics in reverse.
Figures for construction, released on Friday, detailing a record 45 per cent contraction in output between April and June, provided something of a foretaste.
This was bigger than anything seen during the 2008 property crash – that caused a quarterly decline of 14 per cent at the worst point – and was nearly four times the euro area average of 12 per cent.
Lockdown severity
Across the globe, GDP declines for the second quarter have been averaging 10-20 per cent, depending on the severity of the lockdown and the economy’s reliance on consumer-facing sectors like hospitality and tourism.
Ireland has had tougher restrictions than most, and is therefore odds on to have suffered a big reversal.
GDP, the standard barometer of economic activity, tends to flatter the domestic economy here largely because of statistical noise from the multinational sector.
That said, pharma and IT, mainstays of the Irish export sector, have proved more resilient than most, as they are plugged into the crisis in a positive way. More medicines, more remote working.
Irish goods exports, which covers the pharma sector, jumped to a record €15.7 billion in March as demand for medicines and other treatments connected with the pandemic surged. This reflected companies positioning their stock abroad in anticipation of potential difficulties in shipping, and was probably a once-off.
Nonetheless, exports dragged us out of the gloom that was the financial crisis, and they’re likely to somewhat offset the shock to GDP from coronavirus too.
