Examining the spatial distribution of marine employment
In order to examine the spatial distribution of marine industry employment, the study makes use of an existing spatial microsimulation model for the general Irish population; the SMILE (Spatial Microsimulation Model of the Irish Local Economy) model. SMILE is a static spatial microsimulation model designed to simulate regional welfare, income, and labour distributions in Ireland and thus provide a basis for regional economic and public policy analysis. Linking marine enterprise data, county level marine industry employment statistics and Census of Population place of work data allows for the analysis of policy change impacts on regional employment, at different spatial scales. The model was used to carry out a micro-level regional assessment of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic restrictions on the distribution of employment in the Irish ocean economy.