With results released today, there has been a 4.2% rise in employment year on year. This comes along with a surprising increase of 4.5% in the unemployment rate in Ireland too. These can be attributed to the influx of immigrants into Ireland, which reached over 80,000 people in 2006 (Results from the CSO, Ireland). Foreign nationals accounted for almost half of the increase in these figures.
This still leaves Ireland as one of the fastest growing countries in the European Union, and shows that in the coming year this strength is expect to grow.
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