Ireland’s economy is doing well, even though the main GDP numbers may not show it, according to a top research group.
The Irish economy’s size is mostly affected by the actions of big international companies.
This often makes the country’s economic growth rate seem higher than it really is.
However, the ESRI says the opposite is happening now.
The ESRI said that even though the economy has slowed down, there is still some growth happening.
At the same time, the big international companies that control a lot of the economy have slowed down. This is easy to see because there are fewer things being sold to other countries and not as much money being invested.
Pharmaceutical exports are going down.
The experts expect the country’s economy to shrink by about 3% this year, but the underlying domestic economy is predicted to grow by 0.
It was mentioned that the main thing causing Ireland’s economy to slow down this year is the decrease in the amount of goods being sold to other countries.
The biggest thing that the country sells to other countries is medicines, but this year the amount of medicines sold to other countries has gone down by 6%.
This is partly because big global drug companies sold a lot of drugs which became more common during the pandemic.
Ireland’s job market has gotten a lot better since the pandemic. The unemployment rate is now less than 5%, which is almost like everyone who can work has a job.
ESRI said that the small increase in the unemployment rate is probably just because some Ukrainian immigrants were reclassified in the statistics.