EY Ireland today announced results of two economic scenarios that it has developed in response to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis.

EY say estimating the potential economic impact of the pandemic is extremely difficult due to the uncertainty around the length of the crisis and the evolving nature of the response, and the professional and consultancy services firm has modelled both ‘Base Case’ and ‘Prolonged Disruption’ scenarios.

Job losses are projected to be 177,000 in EY’s base case scenario, but over 450,000 jobs are expected to be either lost or furloughed during the most severe phase of the pandemic whilst businesses are shut.

These numbers rise to 318,000 and 675,000 respectively in the prolonged outbreak scenario. This is in stark contrast to pre COVID-19 figures which forecast an additional 38,000 jobs in 2020.

Commenting on the projections, Chief Economist for EY Ireland, Professor Neil Gibson said, "While the scale of the increase in unemployment is frightening, it is likely that we have not seen the worst just yet. Additional restrictions on commercial life introduced last Friday, particularly in construction, mean that further increases are likely." 

Source: www.businessworld.ie