New Focus required for Department of Employment as Ireland reaches ‘ full employment ‘
Back 4 Good are pleased to report that the seasonally adjusted live register figure for unemployment in Ireland has dropped by 700 in April ( -0.4%) .
The number of people on the live register in April 2019 is also the lowest number recorded since February 2008 and represents an annual decrease of 30,484 ( -13.6 % )
This good news raises some interesting questions about the future role of the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection relating to the need for this department to refocus its strategy towards dealing with the critical skills shortages that exist in Ireland today .
The Employment Service division of this department ” Intreo ” had over 600 employees working on placement in 2018 when unemployment was running at 17% today its still has over 600 staff in that division with unemployment at 4.6% and with over 50,000 long-term unemployed people removed to costly private sector activation programmes .
Ireland is running out of skilled workers and over 80% of employers have stated that they cannot find enough skilled workers to deliver existing business, with wage rates rising and expansion plans on hold due to the lack of talent the extra 600 staff in Intreo must be supported to step up to the plate and get involved with innovative programmes such as Back 4 Good and deliver much needed talent to Irish industry .
Live Register Summary –
Other interesting stats from the CSO are,
. 10.3 % of the numbers on the live register are persons under the age of 25
. 16.921 people are new registrants with maes accounting for 46.7 % and females accounting for 53.3 % of all new registrants .
. Craft and related occupations remain the largest occupational group at 16.7 % ( notwithstanding a skills crisis in the construction sector )
. Irish nationals accounted for 82.2.% of the number of persons on the live register in April 2019
. 32.342 non Irish nationals made up the remaining with EU15 to EU28 States at 18.481 followed by the UK with 7.472
. 51,349 People are participating in ” Activation Programmes ” target at long unemployed people these programmes are costing the department over € 50 million with limited results .
The live register of course is not designed to measure unemployment it includes part-time workers ,seasonal workers and casual workers unemployment is measured by the labour Force survey which pointed out that there was an annual increase in employment of 2.3% in the year to the fourth quarter of 2018 bringing total employment in Ireland to 2,281,300 .
