Barry J Whyte: Positive jobs figures only part of the story for Ireland Inc

If Ireland were a company, would jobs figures be an accurate measurement of its health? Arguably not.

Figures announced this week showed the number of people unemployed in Ireland dropped to 6.8 per cent.

This is undeniably good news and it gave an opportunity for a variety of commentators and observers to expound on the health of Ireland Inc. Most of the coverage was positive, and not unreasonably so: the figure has been slowly improving since the peak of the crisis, and it did so because of hard work and ...