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COALITION TDs HAVE been talking up the latest CSO employment figures today.
Released shortly before midday, the Quarterly National Household Survey makes for generally positive reading.
As Joan Burton notes…
I am very pleased to see that unemployment is now at 10.9%, the lowest level since March 2009.
“These numbers reflect the fact that the recovery is becoming established and sustained. The unemployment rate has now dipped below 11% for the first time since March 2009.”
Statements using similar language have been rolling in from various other Labour and Fine Gael politicians — while some have also been taking to Twitter to tout the figures.
Today’s figures from the CSO show that unemployment is now at 10.9%, the lowest level since March 2009. Today’s... http://t.co/ArX2FyCQ3A
One Twitter user with a head for figures took Farrell to task for his lack of detail…
Whoops!
We couldn't find this Tweet
Elsewhere on Twitter, others were also criticising the graphic… Today FM Political Correspondent Gavan Reilly (formerly of this parish) summed up the problem pretty well with this to-the-point Tweet…
Fox News gets panned for this sort of graphic. How long is the X axis? Why does the Y axis start at 10.9% and not 0%? pic.twitter.com/9iiX93BlIE
And the Fine Gael press office was pretty quick to come back with an explanation — stressing that the graph was automatically generated by the Central Statistics Office website, before it was transposed into the blue-and-white graphic….
Update: The TD has been back on Twitter since we originally posted this article, shortly after 8pm. Several people had replied to his original offending tweet in the intervening hours, but the deputy chose not to engage with them.
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I’d generally agree that charts need to be labelled but they don’t always. Sometime you can just have a image saying lowest unemployment in 5 years and a downward trending line for illustration purposes.
It depends on the use case, if you are having a policy discussion then the chart should be labelled to convey information. If it’s a political poster than I don’t think it matters that much. The emphasis is on the “5 year bit” and not on the specifics of the figures.
@David Burke, I completely agree. A chart doesn’t have to be accurate when it is just being used to manipulate the facts. 10.9% unemployment is not something to be proud of.
No David. Publishing such a graph without labelling the axes is tantamount to calling ALL the voters morons, not just the guy that pointed up his sloppiness.
The unemployment rate quoted is number out of work over the total population, not the working population, this is another manipulation. As a % of the working population unemployment is running @~20%+.
David, this is not the fault of the CSO as their graph isn’t too far away from what it should be. The terrible copy-paste job from the Fine Gael propaganda department is to blame.
When you force a generation to emigrate and throw the ones who stay into unpaid labour jobs (job bridge) then I’d expect a graph like that. But hey let’s celebrate and criticise anyone who doubts ‘the figures’
Ah sure politicians do that all the time, sure a prominent SF candidate told me to “F*ck off” when I challenged him over water policy. Tis all a bitta fun!
No the government played a very important role. Sentiment is hugely important particularly when investors aren’t always educated on the specifics. Say what you want about Kenny but the man has energy. Remember the Miriam Lord piece taking the piss out of his trip to Japan to meet the PM. The man doesn’t stop.
Can we compare that chart, to the chart which illustrates the mass emigration of our well educated (expensively educated) native population for the same period?
Clearly not educated or experienced in the right areas. There is a huge skills shortage, that is what is holding back further inward investment.
A bit of time overseas never hurt any young Irish person. We don’t know it all here on our little mossy green isle. Plenty to be learned in other foreign cities. They can come back all the better for it, if they choose to do so.
Or fked off the dole after 5 months given no reason why. Offered an internship in something i have an m.a. in. Started my own business and which i got fk all help from this government. I succeeded despite them putting a roadblock at every opportunity. This is another spin exercise. Theres a reason fg never serve succesive governments
Dr. Goebbels Office in FG & Lab ( the puppy dog ) are working double time on cooking the employment Books !!!!
What’s really sick peculiar – is that in reducing the Unemployment Stats . they include as being Employed our Sons and Daughters , who have left Ireland for foreign parts !
What a crowd of Con Artists they are !
Nearly a Half a Million of our Citizens since 2008 !
Jeez johngahan.
You’ve nailed it!
You’ve just done a great impression of the also-ran FG&Lab there.
( just after they lie their way into government,
and start back tracking on their pre election promises,
as they begin to lamely try and rationalise their corruption, ineptitude, greed and laziness away, with glib, sneery, loose, antagonistic statements )
There is only one person responsible for making things happen in your life and that’s yourself.
There seem to be a lot of people who expect the government to serve them up something on a plate, study their Leaving Cert for them, fill out their CAO form, hand them a degree and then give them a job.
No legitimate successful employee or entrepreneur globally would attribute their success to the right government being in power.
Nail on the head again Graham. This bunch will be the last government that uses cronyism, corruption and under handed tactics. No future government will try it, because now they see twhat the irish people can do
Figures published by the Central Statistics Office show a total of 81,900 people of all nationalities moved out of Ireland in the 12 months to April, down 8 per cent on the 89,000 recorded in 2012/13.
What have we gained out of his trip to Japan? The Government are trying to make it look like all their p!$$1Ng into the wind has somehow had an effect. People have less money yet they are spending more, despite more emmigration? How is it happening? Net positove immigration, more people in the country means more demand and more money spent, starting up the sluggish economy. The positive performance of export could not be down to the government, it was driven by the companies exporting and some of them managed to take advantage of the recession to keep their cost base down. Also a weakening Euro is good for exports out of the Eurozone
“There is only one person responsible for making things happen in your life and that’s yourself”…….?????? Where did you read that one? I hope you didn’t make it up because it sounds like something comical Ali would say. The government are responsible for the reduction in my wages not me, I have less disposable income (none) because of government levy and charges, its not because of me it’s down to the government having an effect on mine and everyone’s life
Don’t worry I know all about that johngahan.
I have had my own successful business since before I left school and have worked in many parts of the world.
I’m just highlighting the point that our government is not to be trusted as is full of corrupt, criminal, liars who continually p1ss away our tax euros.
@ johngahan.
“No legitimate successful employee or entrepreneur globally would attribute their success to the right government being in power”
Let’s ask Denis O’Brien and the Galway tent brigade about that one?
Just a little reminder: Almost 1,000 Irish people left Ireland each week last year to find work abroad — the highest figure since the recession began in 2008.
According to the latest CSO figures, 50,900 Irish people emigrated in the 12 months to April. Overall, 89,000 people left the country in this period — an increase of 2.2% on the 87,100 in 2012.
Would this be a big chunk on 10.9% of unemployment
Operation bombardment.
Kill the public conscience just a wk after the water debacle with Mickley mouse figures, stats and false promises.
I’ve never seen such roll out of pseudo good news from a government on all the age old achilles heels of this country.
We haven’t gone away you know! !
See you in the long grass!
Too right Eugene,it’s been all great news from the anti Irish party that is Fine Gael.They cut a piece here,snip some stats there and as if by magic the gullible Irish will believe their crap.
They work for ze Germans because they’ve no balls or regard for their own people.The above article is another minor example of their ineptness.Arrogant shower of blue shirt gangsters.
A general election now will give us stability.Im fed up with Fine Gael constantly covering up and back tracking and not doing what we elected them to do.Wait until the Nama scandal comes out,it will make the Irish water robbery look like an episode of Sesame Street!
What ever he might think about the voter he should know better than to put it in writing ffs.Putting it on twitter is akin to publishing an open letter in a national newspaper.
Alan just seems to be mad because I called him on nonsense, and that I’m better at graphs than he is. I’ve since started working on some helpful graphs I’m going to send to him and FG- cost of Irish Water against value of Iish water, number of Dáil seats at the next election available to FG against how angry people are at FG…. perhaps I’ll get a job out of it.
Parasites, Morons,
Threats on a weekly basis about taxes.
Threats to take houses off people over home taxes.
Threats to cut water supply over water taxes.
I dont care if Unemployment is 0.00%
We should not be treated like this.
Haha between this, the ISIS debacle last week and the “lawless utopia” statements I’m seriously beginning to wonder if this is all an elaborate panto put on by the government to give us all a laugh in the run up to Christmas. You couldn’t write this shit!
Total employment was 1,844,000 million in Jan 2011. Now 1,926,000. Increase in employment is 4.4% after almost 4 years. This unemployment decrease is mainly through emigration. Hardly something to be proud of.
An awful lot of those jobs are low paid or temporary. Pharmaceutical, medical device, multinational companies hiring on short term contracts, leaving workers go, then immediately rehiring on the same short term contracts. It’s better than nothing for people desperate for work but our unemployed are being exploited.
Or zero hours contracts.
You could be ‘employed’ on a zero hours contract for a year, never get called for even one hour, and yet be counted as employed for statistical purposes.
This is more disingenuous trollop from FG.. Numbers don’t take into account emigration. Reason for fall is that there are no young people left in the country to label as unemployed.
love the way they are putting the majority on courses and telling europe look were great we have everyone back working, makes no difference if your on dole or courses still the government paying them.
It’s not only those on JobsBridge that are considered to be off the ‘live’ register. Also anyone on Back to Education, TUS, Momentum, Solas (FAS) Course and CE Schemes. This so called drop in unemployment isn’t all it’s made out to be
Noonan is the spitting image of Herman Goering and Kenny , with a bit of doctoring could pass as Gobbels, but we have no one of the calibre of Adolf Hitler. When the blue fades from the shirts we’ll be clear of that rag bag mob.
Funnily enough this graph is almost the mirror image of the net emigration graph on this page http://www.finfacts.ie/irishfinancenews/article_1028113.shtml couple this with jobs bridge and then I think you will figure out why labour and fine gael never quote the real figures, the number in employment.
It could quite easily be graphing the drop in unemployment vs the number of deaths over the last five years.Its not the graph thats the problem though. Rather than just saying ‘oops , sorry I forgot to label the axis’ he tried to defend his mistake and ended up calling some a ‘moron’ for pointing out HIS error.
Could somebody,anybody do a comprehensive study of the number of people who have emigrated,who are on job bridge,tus and ce schemes since this govt came to power.If we had this information then the govt wouldnt be able to pull figures out of their arse.
The heading and percentage value give the graph enough context to know what it means. Yes it should be labelled, but it’s not worth getting your knickers in a twist about!
Could we plot a graph on the x axis – number of politicians vs number of family members and friends in the dail and public service. Now that would be interesting.
Not so, Sternn. Fianna Fáil were busy at the employment figures massaging while they were in power. Nothing new in these tactics. Just that FG/Lab are not as adept, not having as much practice!
The blue graph was nonsense but I don’t see the problem with the CSO’s graph! Gav Reilly being a tad pedantic there! I mean look at any graph of stock prices on google! Showing the 0 would be redundant as illustrated!
Approximately 300’000 people have left this country from 2010 to end of 2013 allowing for inward migration we still have a net figure of 125’000 people who have removed themselves from the live register in that time. If you include this figure how good does the drop in unemployment look now. The CSO is statistical analysis personified, take time to dig into the figures and remove the spin and a very different picture appears.
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