While Ireland’s unemployment rate was the sixth highest in the European Union last year, its population remains the second richest of the 27 member states, according to a new report.
The Measuring Ireland's Progress 2009 report, published by the Central Statistics Office today, says the productivity of Irish workers is about one third higher than the EU average, measured by gross domestic product per person employed.
“As Irish employees work longer hours, the productivity per hour worked is relatively lower, but still about 4 per cent above the EU average,” it said.
Ireland’s employment rate fell below the EU average, and its unemployment rate was the sixth highest rate in the EU last year.
The report notes that GDP fell sharply for the second year in a row last year.
The value of GDP fell by 11.3 per cent in 2009. The public balance deficit, at 14.3 per cent of GDP, was the highest of any EU member state.
Government debt increased to nearly two-thirds of GDP, having been only a quarter two years before, according to the report.
Despite this, Ireland still had the second highest GDP per capita in the EU 27 at 31 per cent above the EU average.
While inflation fell in 2009 – the only other EU states with price falls were Portugal and Spain – Irish prices “remain high by EU standards”.
The report also reveals Ireland’s population increased at the fastest rate in the EU between 2000 and 2009
It rose by 17.7 per cent to 4.46 million in the period 2000 to 2009, the highest rate of increase in the EU.
The rate of natural increase was 10.5 per 1,000 in 2008 compared with an EU 27 average of only 1.2.
Life expectancy at birth in Ireland is 76.8 years for men and 81.6 years for women, figures described as “reasonably close to the EU average”.
The State also had the highest proportion of young people in the EU and the lowest proportion of old people.
Ireland has the lowest divorce rate and the highest fertility rate in the EU.
An average of €3,299 per person was spent on non-capital public expenditure on healthcare in Ireland in 2008, an increase of nearly 62 per cent on the 1999 level.
But total expenditure on health is lower than the EU 27 average.
On housing, the report says the number of homes built peaked at almost 90,000 in 2006 “before collapsing to about 26,400 in 2009, the level that prevailed before the mid-1990s”.
The average value of a new housing loan in Ireland rose from €92,000 in 1999 to €270,000 in 2008.