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There's signs that the weak economic recovery in Waterford has run out of steam.

There's signs that the weak economic recovery in Waterford has run out of steam.

The South East Economic Monitor 2018 shows that, despite some signs of improvement, Waterford continues to be left behind and is not enjoying a fair share of the national recovery.

The report says despite a bumper year for the IDA in the SE, the region has fallen further behind the rest of the State in most metrics. Of great concern is that between 2017Q1 and 2018Q1, the number of people in work increased by 62,000 nationally but decreased by 2,400 in the SE.

This decrease is unique to the SE and Border regions. The unemployment rate in the SE seems to have plateaued and any modest short-term decreases over the last 12 months are largely attributable to a shrinking labour force.

There is also a degree of inertia in the job-quality and sentiment metrics, with the region continuing to significantly lag behind other regions. The weak economy is illustrated in data on car sales, income tax and VAT returns, housing and the proportion of workers on the minimum wage.

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With the SE, the structural economic issues continue to dominate short-term economic trends. In particular, the very pronounced deficits in regional higher education capacity, acute hospital services, international tourism, and IDA supported employment drive ever lower job quality. The region faces economic headwinds which are shared with the State such as Brexit and the fragile EU recovery. However, the structural economic issues related to the SE’s relationship with the State continue to assert themselves as the dominant economic driver.

Regional employment is down year on year, mainly due to reduced numbers employed in the industrial and services sectors.

The traditionally high-paid sector of professional, scientific, and technical activities has declined sharply over the past two years - down 9%. In contrast, there has been modest growth in construction labour up 1.5% over the over the same period, but this is against a national construction recovery with a 20% increase in employment.

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