FROM THE ARCHIVES:Dublin was in a depressed economic state in the late 1980s after almost two decades of decline and its future looked grim, according to this report by Padraig O'Morain. – JOE JOYCE
A picture of Dublin as a city in industrial decline, with unemployment rising for the next decade, is painted in a detailed report from the Dublin Business Innovation Centre.
Even if employment were to stop falling and stabilised at its 1985 level of 329,000 jobs, unemployment in Dublin would rise to 26 per cent of the labour force by 1996, the report says.
A cycle of social deprivation, physical dereliction and decay faces the city without major intervention, Dublin Chamber of Commerce warned in a comment on the report.
The Business Innovation Centre is one of 60 such centres throughout the EEC, set up with the support of the European Commission to help the growth of local business.
Between 1981 and 1985 there was a net loss of 30,300 jobs in Dublin, the report states, half in manufacturing and the remainder in services. Dublin has experienced a higher rate of growth in unemployment than many other parts of the country because of a combination of job losses and an expanding work force, it says.
“By any most [sic] yardsticks, the unemployment situation in Dublin has become at least as serious as in any other region,” the report adds.
Within manufacturing, the number of jobs per thousand people living in Dublin declined from 109 to 59 over the 14 years to 1985, the report says. Over this period Dublin’s share of national manufacturing employment fell from 42 per cent to 30 per cent. About half of these jobs were lost in the four years to 1985.
Some yardsticks used in the report suggest that Dublin has been falling behind the rest of the country. In the 10 years to 1981, it lost almost 14,000 net manufacturing jobs while the remainder of the country gained 37,900. And even though Dublin accounted for only 32 per cent of national manufacturing employment in 1981, it still accounted for 45 per cent of job losses between 1981 and 1985.
The most gloomy findings on the report are on unemployment. The numbers of unemployed in the capital doubled between 1971 and 1981 and doubled again in the four years to 1985 when the rate exceeded 19 per cent.
“Even to contain Dublin’s unemployment level in 1996 to the unacceptably high level which prevailed in 1985, it would be necessary to create over 3,000 net new jobs per year,” the report says. “About 7,000 net new jobs would be required each year up to 1996 to halve the present unemployment rate of 19 per cent . . . between 1971 and 1985, the average net increase in job numbers was only about 1,000 a year.”
Dublin Chamber of Commerce called for two initiatives. The first is the establishment of a Dublin Development Authority [and] the designation of Dublin as a target region under the EEC regional programme.
http://url.ie/bimn