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There are green shoots in SME employment, but recovery is 'far from guaranteed'

ISME said that its members are feeling more positive on the jobs front, but said the Government must stay the course on austerity.

SMALL BUSINESSES ARE feeling more positive about their employment prospects than at any time since the autumn of 2007.

That’s the finding of the Irish Small and Medium Enterprise association’s quarterly trend survey, which also shows increases in eight out of 12 key business indicators.

Despite employment indicators hitting their highest post-recession levels, ISME cautioned that economic recovery will be gradual and any meaningful growth “will require cost curtailment, particularly in relation to state-influenced business costs and wage demands.”

ISME chief executive Mark Fielding said that “SMEs are making progress at a slow pace and economic recovery is far from guaranteed at present.”

He said that complacency must be guarded against as long as the State is spending more than it generates in income.

“The fact remains that SMEs continue to be burdened with excessive and uncompetitive cost structures and these, as well as growing pressure for wage demands, must be curtailed.”

With one eye on the Government re-shuffle, Fielding said that a “hopefully reinvigorated Government” must focus on “prudent economic management” and ignore “left wing calles for a stop on austerity, meaning more government spending funded by higher taxes, higher wages and borrowed money.”

Read: Small business satisfaction with Government on the slide>

Read: Government ‘charade’ in ISME crosshairs over late payments>

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9 Comments
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    Mute Symbolism
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    Jul 9th 2014, 6:28 PM

    The graph looks promising. Until you realise we are looking at it from behind.

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    Mute Sean Costello
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    Jul 9th 2014, 6:22 PM

    Green shoots? They’ve been spoken about for the last five years. Has somebody been using herbicides that have stopped these from becoming actual plants?

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    Mute Richie Curry
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    Jul 9th 2014, 7:25 PM

    Things are slowly improving, just a very slow pace.

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    Mute jamie dwyer
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    Jul 10th 2014, 1:29 AM

    Borrowed money my arse, why should any government have to borrow money when it has power to make its own for free when are people going to wake up!

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    Mute Ian McG
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    Jul 11th 2014, 7:55 AM

    @Jamie: The ability to print our own money was actually one of the (many) things we gave away when we joined the Euro.

    Now pretty much anything financial has to be approved by the EU and German parliament.

    But with ex-European of the Year Enda Kenny at the helm, you can be sure there’ll be nothing done to upset our “friends” in Brussels.

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    Mute kopper96
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    Jul 9th 2014, 8:36 PM

    That’s great now they can pay their workers a decent wage.

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    Mute Virtual Architect
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    Jul 9th 2014, 8:51 PM

    This SME sees that the government is guaranteeing that our economy will not recover. But we are all to blame. How many of us understand rudimentary economics and finance? If you don’t take the time to honestly look at the situation then expect to get slaughtered.

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    Mute Neal Ireland Hello
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    Jul 9th 2014, 10:20 PM

    I don’t understand rudimentary plumbing either. Does that make me responsible for the water tax?

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