Here’s some positive news about the Irish economy for a change. IDA client companies have created over 5,000 jobs in first six months of the year despite increased global competition.

Ireland is also getting back to a reasonable level of economic competitiveness (although there’s way more to be done). Office rents, construction costs, labour costs and business services costs have all reduced in recent years.

Ireland also ranks strongly in the availability of skilled staff with the 2012 IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook placing Ireland number one in the world for skilled labour.

The IDA’s 2011 Annual Report, released today, shows there are now almost 146,000 people working directly in over 1,000 IDA client companies. 2011 saw the creation of over 13,000 new jobs with the best net jobs increase since 2002 of over 6,000.

Among the companies announcing the largest projects in the last year were PayPal, Apple and Mylan.

The outlook for the second half of the year and beyond, however, remains less certain. IDA CEO Barry O’Leary says, “There are challenging headwinds facing IDA and Ireland with little growth in European demand, moderate growth in the U.S. and a slowdown in the economies of China and India.”

However, the IDA remains optimistic that Ireland can continue to win more business. It is targeting a number of sectors that will continue to grow even in a globally challenging environment. These include IT/Technology, Digital Media and Lifesciences.

You can download the full IDA report here.