Impact of the Great Recession on unemployed and NEET individuals’ labour market transitions in Ireland Elish Kelly a,b, *, Seamus McGuinness a,b,c a The Economic & Social Research Institute, Whitaker Square, Sir John Rogerson’s Quay, Dublin 2, Ireland b Department of Economics, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland c National Institute for Labour Studies (NILS), Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia Economic Systems xxx (2015) xxx–xxx ARTICLE INFO Article history: Received 9 June 2014 Accepted 25 June 2014 JEL classification: I21 J01 J40 J60 J64 J68 Keywords: Great Recession Ireland Youth unemployment NEETs Labour market transitions Decomposition techniques ABSTRACT The impact that the Great Recession has had on countries’ labour markets has been well documented. In Ireland, the contraction in economic activity that took place resulted in the country’s overall unemployment rate increasing from 4.6% in 2006 to 15% in 2012. The country’s youth unemployment rate rose from 9.9% to 33% over the same time period, while the proportion of NEETs increased from 10.1% in 2006 to 18.7% in 2012. Policymakers are aware of the unemployment rates of young and prime-aged people as well as the NEETs rate. However, little is known about these groups’ profiles, whether their profiles have changed since the recession and also their labour market transition patterns pre and post the Great Recession. Given the importance of this information in the design of effective activation measures to assist unemployed and NEET individuals, this paper examines each of these issues in turn. Overall, the study found for all three groups examined that the rate of transition to employment fell dramatically between 2006 and 2011. The analysis showed that the drop in the groups’ transition rates was not due to changes in the underlying sub-group population structures but to changes in the external environment that resulted in the impact of possessing certain characteristics changing over the recession. For example, education and nationality have become more important in finding a job in Ireland over the course of the recession, while there has been a fall in the scarring impact of unemployment durations. ß 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. * Corresponding author at: The Economic & Social Research Institute, Whitaker Square, Sir John Rogerson’s Quay, Dublin 2, Ireland. Tel.: +353 1 863 2063; fax: +353 1 863 2100. E-mail address: elish.kelly@esri.ie (E. Kelly). G Models ECOSYS-494; No. of Pages 13 Please cite this article in press as: Kelly, E., McGuinness, S., Impact of the Great Recession on unemployed and NEET individuals’ labour market transitions in Ireland. Econ. Syst. (2015), http:// dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecosys.2014.06.004 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Economic Systems journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecosys http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecosys.2014.06.004 0939-3625/ß 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.