Buoyant demand for jobs points the way for regional growth

For anyone who survived the 1980s in Ireland the transformation in the country's economic fortunes has been nothing less than astonishing. In 1985 unemployment in Ireland stood at 280,000 (almost 20 per cent) and the number of persons at work was about one million. Today unemployment has fallen well below 100,000 (less than 4 per cent) while the number of persons at work is rapidly approaching the two million mark.

Looking back over the past 15 years it is hard to pick out one single turning point when the Irish economy started to turnaround. The year 1987 saw the negotiation of the first of the social partnership agreements - the Programme for National Recovery. This is commonly regarded as a major turning point as the industrial peace and wage restraint which it brought assisted in both reining in inflation and in attracting new investment. Together with the improvements to the national finances this paved the way for the wide-scale tax reform of recent years.

But these bald statistics only tell a small part of the story. Many of the jobs which did exist in 1985 are no longer with us. Ireland has moved up the economic value chain and has moved away from the labour intensive, low skills industries which characterised the country during the 1970s and 1980s.

An illustration of this is Ireland's success in the pharmaceutical and electronics sectors. Leading US PC manufacturers IBM, Apple, Dell, Gateway and Compaq have operations in Ireland. Almost a third of the PCs sold in Europe come from companies based in Ireland. Some 60 per cent of all PC-packaged software sold in Europe is manufactured in Ireland. World leaders Microsoft, Lotus, Digital and Novell are among the major software companies with facilities in Ireland. Furthermore, Ireland recently became the largest exporter of software in the world. Not just per capita but in absolute terms.

While there has been a slowdown in the software and electronics sectors over the past year, Ireland has not suffered through major job losses in the sector as yet but several expansion projects have been postponed. However, Ireland's indigenous electronics and software sector continues to grow with a large number of firms such as Comnitel, Sepro and Network 365 holding world leading positions in emerging growth areas such as mobile commerce.

Sixteen of the world's top 20 healthcare companies have chosen to locate here. Over 120 overseas companies employ 17,000 people and export £12.5 billion annually. And about 95 per cent of these companies are from the US. This makes Ireland one of the largest exporters of pharmaceuticals and fine chemicals in the world. And growth in this vital sector continues.

Evidence of Ireland's continuing success in attracting US healthcare investments is the recent decision by American Home Products Corporation (AHPC), the parent of Wyeth, to expand its facilities here in the largest ever pharmaceutical investment in this country. The company is to invest $1 billion in a new plant which will be located at Grange Castle in Co Dublin and will involve the creation of 1,300 new jobs at full production - bringing total AHPC employment in Ireland to 2,900.

Another recent win for Ireland was the decision by Bristol Myers Squibb, one of the world's leading pharmaceutical companies, to undertake the single biggest investment ever by the company here in Ireland. The investment, which totals £300 million, involves a significant expansion of the company's existing Swords Laboratories facility at Swords, Co Dublin, and a completely new pharmaceutical facility at Cruiserath, near Mulhuddart, Co Dublin. The investment will result in the creation of 500 new jobs - 430 in manufacturing and an additional 70 jobs at a new research and development centre at Swords Laboratories.

And just two months ago it was announced that Genzyme Corporation of Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the US, one of the largest independent pharmaceutical-biotechnology companies in the world, plans to establish a new manufacturing facility on a 32-acre site in Waterford. The facility will be the initial project in a manufacturing investment envisioned by Genzyme that could reach €250 million and have the potential for creating up to 480 jobs over five years.

In recent years Ireland has also emerged as the undisputed leader in the field of pan-European call centres. Over 70 major companies, including US corporations, Best Western, Gateway, ITT Sheraton, IBM, American Airlines, Quarterdeck, UPS, Dell and Software Spectrum have chosen Ireland for European call centres.

And career opportunities are not limited to overseas industry. Indigenous industry has also been growing rapidly with Enterprise Ireland reporting record growth among client companies for 2000. These companies, which are mainly Irish manufacturing and internationally traded services companies employing more than 10 people, achieved

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