Maybe my staycation is really addling my brain but why are the only job creation initiatives being created in the past few weeks those in the retail sector?

Tesco managers refer to Ireland as Treasure Island because the profit margins are so high. (They don’t like us knowing that they call us that or what profits they make here either) Last week they opened a store in Naas and the Taoiseach opened it.

Today more leading headlines for Tesco (while we refuse to really talk about the bail out and if it is or is not happening) as they ‘create’ 300 jobs and open more stores of treasure.

Last week also Iceland returned to plunder the Irish market (and yes it’s an Irish Franchise I know) with the announcement that they will open 40 stores and ‘create’ 2000 jobs. I put create in quotes because I don’t know how we can ever verify that every job announced by Batt O’Keefe or funded by the IDA/EI is actually going to happen. And how much does each job cost us?  And how much extra do we have to pay in the form of funding retail jobs by people spending money in the stores?

There seems to be so much hype around retail jobs but is it too clever to think that there needs to be an actual economy out there to sustain the shops?   And the local shops and town centres that are being decimated by the  hyped/hyper markets? And their support of local industries?  It’s only been talked about for 30 years as not making sense to fund jobs which displace others. I know the people who got the jobs are delighted to have them but their jobs depend on other people having jobs so that money can be spent, and there are other people who are going to lose jobs because of their new jobs.

In all the talk about Ireland and getting us out of this mess there is so little focus on job creation and social cohesion by any of the political parties.  We are still in the blame game and very little focus is going onto us actually recreating an economy unless you call it a ‘smart economy’ or put green in front of that.  (I’m not too sure how many real jobs are being created and what cost is there either.)

Cheap crap foreign produced frozen food sold by staff on minimum wages where most of the profits/jobs making the food are going abroad (at generous tax incentivised rates) does not an economy make.

And there ends this chicken’s rant for the day.