The economy continued to grow strongly throughout the tens, first decade of the new century. This was thanks to liberal labour policies which imported the necessary manpower through immigration from within the EU (especially the new Eastern European member states) and beyond. The Northern Irish economy has been playing catch up through increased integration with that of the south - significantly increasing the quantity of cross-border trade in recent years.
Indigenous companies have shown the strongest growth. They are now generally seen as a better place to work than multinational companies due to a greater variation in the type of work on offer, the promise of a more friendly working environment, and the potential to a play a more significant role in developing the company. Although the government has been careful to ensure that the gap between the low paid and those on the average industrial wage has decreased, there is a widening of the gap between the average wage and those in the top echelon.
The improved regional infrastructure has helped many businesses compete. It has made it easier to locate outside the cities and more and more employees are available there as people move from Dublin and Cork in search of a better quality of life. While the city centres have not suffered yet, Dublin is now ringed with shopping and entertainment villages that give you less and less of a reason to make a trip into the city.
We live in an age which keeps us more in touch with each other than ever before through our mobile communicators and Internet-TVs which we all have. As we face into the next decades however, questions are being asked about the social cost of success. A more individualistic society has developed and with average household sizes dropping and people spending more of their leisure time in-home, greater loneliness is evident amongst the single and the elderly.