LAURA SLATTERYlooks back on the week in business

Shop talk

Mothercare has issued after a profit warning after winter weather reduced sales by 5.8 per cent in the final three months of 2010. Toy sales were hit the hardest after the firm was forced to cut off online Christmasorders earlier than normal to ensure those that were ordered were delivered, prompting retail analysts to point to the fragilities of relying on time-critical direct online sales. The UK-based retailer said sales at its out-of-town shopping centres had also suffered due to access problems during the recent snow blitz.

“Mums with younger kids, mums pushing prams and pregnant women tend not to want to battle through the snow,” Mothercare’s finance director Neil Harrington observed.

Commodity watch

Food prices hit a record high in December and are likely to rise further due to erratic global weather patterns, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation says. Food prices have now outstripped levels reached during the great spike of 2008, which prompted riots in countries including Haiti, Egypt and Cameroon. Experts fear a repeat.

“It creates significant tension in poorer countries, exacerbates standard-of-living disparities and is a major source of unrest,” said James Bond (not that one), chief operating officer of the World Bank’s political risk insurance arm, Miga.

While it was supply shocks such as floods in Australia and fires in Russia that initially pushed up prices, though, export bans and speculators are now taking over that role.

€161bn

– The value of the goods and services exported from Ireland in 2010, according to figures from the Irish Exporters’ Association.

"When I put the pedal to the metal in the Noughties it was just the wrong time to be doing it"

- Broadcaster Ivan Yates rues the past as Celtic Bookmakers, the betting chain he owns with his wife, is placed in receivership.

STATUS UPDATE

Sooner a schooner:The UK has relaxed rules on the size of measurements in pubs, meaning drinkers will be able to eschew the 568 ml pint in favour of the 425 ml Australian schooner.

Results dirge:Music, DVD, games and books group HMV saw its shares plummet after it announced a 14 per cent drop in sales over Christmas and the closure of 60 stores.

Tax curse:Self-declared witches in Romania, who are annoyed about having to pay tax for the first time, are planning to use cat excrement and poisonous plants to curse its government.

THE QUESTION

What does yesterday's Live Register tell us about Ireland's 'lost generation'?

With the number of people on the Live Register of unemployment benefit claimants up 3.2 per cent, or a net 13,484 people, on an annual basis, the headline figures from the Central Statistics Office indicate that the labour market has stopped collapsing at the dramatic rate that it did in 2008 and 2009.

However, the numbers are obviously still very, very poor.

The latest estimate of Ireland’s unemployment rate is 13.4 per cent.

Pundits and politicians who talk about a “lost generation” of young people cut out of the workforce by the actions and inactions of the older elite often cite two figures from the Live Register.

The first is the falling percentage of people who can be classed as short-term claimants (who are in between jobs) rather than long-term claimants (those forced to rely on unemployment benefit for more than a year).

This rate slipped from 77 per cent to 66 per cent last year, as the number of long-term unemployed rose by 60,000 over the period.

This signals that job creation, as the Small Firms Association said yesterday, remains weak.

The second figure of interest is the number of claimants aged 25 or under. This has actually fallen over the past year – by 3,118. Rather than pointing to job opportunities for the young, this reflects other employment and emigration data telling us that skedaddling is now the best option for debt-free, dependent-free people unable to find work at home.

“It seems that people with qualifications are the ones leaving the country,” said Fine Gael’s enterprise spokesman Richard Bruton yesterday.

But will this “lost generation” ever come back?