Full Employment? What about the forgotten 83,600?

22 Jun 2004

The Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed is angered by the regularity to which politicians and economic commentators refer to Ireland as having attained full employment. This only fuels the sense of complacency in addressing the issue of unemployment and rising redundancies.

‘Are the current 83,600 unemployed people to be forgotten about?’ asks Eric Conroy General Secretary INOU. ‘This is a worrying development especially when this figure is an underestimate due to the ILO definition of unemployment being so narrow. Also for those who are long-term unemployed the picture is bleaker as continual increases have been recorded. The number of individuals who are over 12 months unemployed rose from 21,700 in 2001 to 30,500 in 2004. Also these figures do not include those affected by the recent redundancy announcements. In fact, the total number of redundancies so far this year exceeds 2003.’

The attitude that “unemployed people do not want to work” is not only untrue, as can be seen by the dramatic decreases in unemployment levels in the last 10 years. But it also does little to dispel the stigma associated with unemployment. Employers can be prejudiced against unemployed people, thereby increasing their dependency on social welfare and increasing their experience of poverty and social exclusion.

‘There will always be an element of unemployment as people move between jobs, however, the portion of unemployed people who are long-term unemployed is increasing, so full employment is nowhere near attained. The economy has been growing but certain individuals are still excluded from participating. The Government has a long way to go in reaching its target of eliminating long-term unemployment by 2007. Such complacency will mean that these 30,500 people with varying skills, education and talent will be marginalised further’, he added.