INOU welcomes study on Profiling the Unemployed

4 Jul 2005

The Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed warmly welcomes the research done by the ESRI on profiling the unemployed in Waterford and Galway live register surveys. It also welcomes Minister Brennan’s comments at the launch that the old canard that many unemployed people do not want to work is not true.

‘The study is very clear in showing that we can predict fairly accurately when newly unemployed people sign on for social welfare, that they will become long term unemployed (LTU)’, said Eric Conroy, General Secretary of the INOU. ‘One of the major components of the profile of LTU is lack of education. The correlation between uncompleted education and unemployment (especially LTU) is very stark in Ireland, and is the strongest relationship in the EU.’

‘We would support the intervention of the National Employment Action Plan (NEAP), through its preventative strategy with unemployed people of less than 6 months, if the profile pointed to LTU. Earlier intervention will reduce periods of LTU, reduce social welfare payments and lead to individuals transforming their lives and contributing their talents to the economy: we have a win-win situation’, he added.

The INOU has stated regularly that the NEAP needs to have a good range of options for it to be a useful tool for engagement with unemployed people. For example, the Back to Work and Back to Work Enterprise Allowances need to be reduced substantially from their current eligibility requirements (5