IDA Ireland, the Irish inward direct foreign investment agency, today launched its 'Horizon 2020' setting a target for 62,000 direct new jobs by 2014. There is no estimate of job losses and in 2009, the total employed in IDA Ireland supported companies fell below the 2000 level.
Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Mary Coughlan, T.D., said ‘Horizon 2020’, IDA Ireland’s strategic blueprint for attracting Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) into Ireland in the coming decade, is an integral part of the Government’s Smart Economy policy noting that, “Within the Irish economy, foreign direct investment has been, and will continue to be, a catalyst for our national prosperity. FDI companies create hundreds of thousands of high-quality jobs, both for the employees of the investing companies and in the firms, including indigenous firms, that provide them with goods and services. Securing such investments can also play a pivotal role in rejuvenating part of a city, a town or region were employment opportunities are limited.”
Coughlan said said that the continued attraction of sustainable foreign direct investment is critical to ensuring Ireland’s economic recovery and that ‘Horizon 2020’ sets out a compelling argument for the need for ongoing ‘transformation’ in our approach to secure leading FDI here. She said that this ‘transformation’ included: within the existing FDI companies located in Ireland; within IDA Ireland itself; in how Ireland markets itself abroad; and in the way all stakeholders collaborate to ensure Ireland secures these investments.
Barry O’Leary CEO, IDA Ireland speaking at the launch said “Horizon 2020 marks the first time that IDA has published its strategic thinking in this way. This strategy document articulates our view of the next decade’s significant future changes. It outlines the results of a detailed analysis of global mega-trends, economic geopolitical changes and technology roadmaps from which we have outlined the goals Ireland needs to set to capitalise on the opportunities that they represent.” He added“IDA recognises that the ambitious goals set out in ‘Horizon 2020’ necessitate a deeper and broader engagement of all stakeholders requiring public and private sector partners working together in new ways to bring this to fruition.”
However, the document is basically a market brochure and it doesn't even set out a basic SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis. Neither is there any hint of the expected difficult international backdrop nor how 20% of projects can come form emerging markets.
Besides, to set out a target for new jobs without providing an estimate for net jobs undermines teh credibility of what is called a "strategy."
Investment Targets 2010-2014:
- 105,000 new jobs
- 640 investments
- 50% of investments will be located outside Dublin and Cork
- 20% of Greenfield investments originating from high-growth emerging markets by 2014
- Annual spend in excess of €1.7bn in research , development and innovation by 2014
The '105,000' new jobs are both direct and indirect jobs and Barry O'Leary clarified at a press conference that the target for direct jobs is 62,000. As spin is a very big feature of Irish jobs announcements, there was no reference to the direct jobs in the official announcement. The total of 105,000 was a better headline grabber.
An illustration of the new challenge is that the number employed in IDA-assisted companies has fallen from 141,000 in 2000 to 136,000 in 2009.
Employment in companies assisted by Irish State enterprise agencies - - IDA Ireland, the foreign direct investment (FDI) promotion agency and agencies supporting indigenous enterprises in the tradable goods/services sectors: Enterprise Ireland, Shannon Development and Údarás na Gaeltachta - - in December 2008 was 1.4 per cent (3,981 jobs) higher than it was in 1999. Employment in Irish-owned companies had increased from 142,142 in 1999 to 144,734 in 2008, while employment in foreign-owned companies increased from 150,975 in 1999 to 152,364 in 2008, increases of 1.8 and 0.9 per cent respectively.
Total Irish employment in December 1998 was 1.54 million and was 2.05 million in December 2008 - - a surge of 33 per cent.
In the peak boom year of 2006, 83,000 new jobs were added in the economy while direct job creation in the export sectors was less than 6,000.
So with a much more unfavourable international environment ahead than in most of the past decade, the latest target can only be viewed as an aspiration.
IDA Ireland Strategy - Horizon 2020 - Pdf
Separately, FÁS and the ESRI today published a forecast of 250,000 new jobs by 2015 with 330,000 job losses.
We said that given that Ireland's economic outlook is very dependent on the growth of other advanced countries, while developments in emerging markets such as China, will have little impact on Ireland, the current fragile recovery in the US and the Eurozone, coupled with the burden of reducing high public debt, suggest that the Spring 2009 recovery scenarios used by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) as a basis for the current employment forecasts, may be optimistic.
Before the general election in 2007, the Fianna Fáil party published a document with the aspiration to create 250,000 new jobs over a five-year period.
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The challenge of creating 160000 new Irish jobs
