Economist, Jim Power gives an economic and financial update to the pharmacy sector in the March edition of the IPU Review. Click on the PDF for the full article.
As we move into a new year, we are leaving behind a year that actually turned out much better than expected from an economic perspective, given that COVID-19 continued to have a significant impact on the way we conduct our lives.
Most Irish economic metrics improved during the course of the year. Gross domestic product (GDP) is likely to have expanded by around 15 per cent. GDP of course grossly exaggerates the real health of the economy as it is seriously distorted by the tax-driven activities of multinational companies, but when these distortions are stripped out, a more real measure of activity, modified domestic demand, is likely to have expanded by a healthy rate of around 4.5 per cent. Another notable feature of the Irish economy during 2021 was a sharp improvement in the labour market in terms of both employment and unemployment.
