Strong employment growth welcomed, but youth unemployment an ongoing concern

9 Jun 2005

The Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed welcomes the strong employment growth that has continued from 2004 into 2005. The numbers at work increased by 72,400 or 3.9% in the year and this is the highest annual employment growth since 2000. “It is encouraging to see that our overall employment rate has increased from 65.7% to 66.8% in the past year” said Eric Conroy, INOU General Secretary. Thus Ireland is making good progress in meeting the Lisbon Agenda target of 70% by 2010”. Correspondingly, the numbers of people unemployed have decreased to 82,100. This is an annual reduction of 1,500. In addition, the numbers who are long term unemployed has now reduced to 27,800.

‘We note with interest, that of the extra 40,000 women in employment over the year, 17,600 consists of part time work’, said Mr. Conroy. ‘In the changing work demographics of Ireland in 2005, our social welfare code must change to enable unemployed part time people (mainly women with work/life balance issues) to seek part time employment and not lose their Unemployment Benefit/Allowance entitlements (UB/UA)’. Currently unemployed people must be seeking full time employment to qualify for UB/UA.

Although youth unemployment has reduced (and also long term unemployment), it is still very worrying that those aged 15-24 years continue to make up a sizeable portion of the long term unemployment figures. The level has only marginally reduced to 6,500 in this category. The youth unemployment rate of over 7.8% is nearly twice the national average. Measures to bring this down to the national average should feature in the next round of social partnership.