Breakfast Business

The great and the good in tourism gather this week in London for the World Travel Market.  Tourism Ireland will be there banging the drum over there to drive visitors to the entire island of Ireland and it will be able to say that tourism levels have mostly recovered well since the pandemic.  The company has a new boss - the former Google Executive Alice Mansergh who joined Joe on the show.

The Irish specialist skills gap is very real and will only get worse unless Ireland takes a more innovative approach to sourcing talent.”  That’s the view of the recruitment specialists Castille who have just made Lapps Quay in Cork their new global headquarters.  But what can Ireland do to bridge the skills gap if the cost of hiring people continues to soar and housing remains an intractable problem? Speaking to Joe this morning was Matthew Camilleri the Founder and CEO of Castille.

A look at today's business papers and websites with Newstalk Business Editor Joe Lynam.

From next year employers will have to deal with quite a few new challenges when it comes to staffing and HR rules.  They include new rules for whistleblower protection but also increasingly tighter rules on the protection of personal data.  And then there’s the key ruling from the Supreme court last month about the Gig economy.  All these issues will be discussed this week at the Employment Bar Association conference and Cathy Smith the Senior Counsel and a member of the EBA committee joined Joe this morning.

Last week we saw unemployment rise to 4.8% still low by recent standards.  While only yesterday the CSO said that the live register of people who claim unemployment support had gone down by 1.8%.  Hovering overhead is also the fear that the corporation tax goose is laying slightly smaller eggs and potentially upsetting spending plans.To discuss further Joe spoke to the Independent Economist Simon Barry.

A run-through of some of the business stories today with Newstalk Business Editor Joe Lynam.

Europe’s biggest airline  Ryanair has just posted its half-yearly results.  To discuss the results Joe spoke to Neil Sorahan, CFO with Ryanair.  

Irish households are rapidly accessing high-speed broadband more and as a result, we’re also downloading videos and using video on demand a lot more.  That’s according to the PWC report into the Entertainment & media in Ireland.  It found that cinema-going is growing but the long-term trend is downwards as is the consumption of newspapers    Speaking to Joe this morning was Conor Forde, Director, PwC Ireland Entertainment. 

A run through of some of the business stories today with Newstalk Business Editor Joe Lynam.

Yesterday we heard that unemployment rose to 4.8% in Ireland.  Despite that many economists describe the country as having almost full employment.  That has created skills shortages for many companies, especially SMEs.  That’s reflected in the SME monitor out today from the Banking and Payments Federation.   Speaking to Joe to discuss this further Brian Hayes the Chief Executive of the BPFI.

The EU has been trying to negotiate with Australia over a trade deal since 2018 but the talks collapsed this week. The EU appears to have baulked at demands from Canberra to deeper access to European markets for its farmers.  There is already trade worth €56bn between the Eu and Australia but a Free Trade agreement would certainly boost that figure. But farmers here are worried that mass-produced Australian beef and lamb could undercut prices locally. Olof Gill the EU Commission spokesperson for Trade joined Joe this morning to discuss.

A look at today's business papers and markets with Joe Lynam and Aidan Donnelly from Davys.

Just over a week ago, the Supreme Court passed a landmark judgement which will have a major impact on the so-called gig economy in Ireland. The ruling could impact more than 100,000 people and cost their new ‘employers’ more money.Speaking to Joe this morning on the show with more on this was Anne Dullea from the Revenue Commissioners.

Aldi is one of the very few supermarkets in this country which publishes its annual results.  Their financial year numbers for the past year show that sales were up 1.1% to €2bn but pretax profits were down a whopping 56% to €17m.  The supermarket says that planning delays continue to hamper the roll out of new stores around the country, but their expansion will continue anyway.Niall O’Connor Group Managing Director, Aldi Ireland joined Joe in the studio this morning.

Newstalk Business Editor Joe Lynam takes a look at some of the business stories this morning.

There was a time when cash was king, and money dictated where everyone wanted to work.  Then came technology and especially lockdowns and suddenly flexibility is the single most important attribute for employees when job hunting.  That’s according to Employflex.  Its survey found that company perks swayed only 6% of workers.   Speaking to Joe this morning was Karen O’Reilly the Founder of Employflex. 

The lion's share of manufacturing in this country stems from the pharmaceutical sector. But huge exporters such as Pfizer are now seeing a clear decline in sales as demand for the COVID vaccine drops, that’s having a direct impact on our manufacturing data and has been reflected in the latest AIB survey. Oliver Mangan the Chief Economist from AIB joined Joe this morning.

A run-through of some of the business stories today with Newstalk Business Editor Joe Lynam.

Kota raises €5 million to make core employee benefits work for modern companies and platforms. For more on this Emmet spoke Luke Mackey, Co-founder and CEO of Kota.

Festival organisers have announced a Live Club Jazz Jam collab show taking place this Saturday night at Cork Opera House. Speaking to Emmet as the festival begins this weekend was  Fiona Collins, Chairperson of the Guinness Cork Jazz Festival.