Time to invest in people, time to invest in Jobs

2 Sep 2009

Today the Central Statistics Office released the Live Register figures for the end of August 2009. The Standardised Unemployment Rate now stands at 12.4% or 428,800 people on the Seasonally Adjusted Register.

Whilst the figures indicate a welcome slow down in the rate of increase in the numbers signing onto the Live Register, the scale of the unemployment crisis is borne out by these figures. The INOU is again calling on the Government to treat the unemployment crisis as its number one priority and for urgent and extensive action to address this issue before long-term unemployment becomes embedded once again.

The scale of the on-going redundancy crisis is also reflected in the numbers of redundancies notified to the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment for the month of August. 5,914 redundancies were notified in the month, taking the numbers for the year to 54,887, an increase of 134.5% on last year's figures. 2008 was the highest year on record with 40,607 redundancies. So far, "2009 has been a disastrous year for job losses and this looks set to continue for the rest of the year unless urgent action is taken to keep people in their jobs" said John Stewart, INOU Co-ordinator.

In this respect the INOU is concerned that, recent figures would suggest that the take up of the Employment Subsidy Scheme managed by Enterprise Ireland, has not been as anticipated with some employers stating that the application process is too complicated. The Employment Subsidy Scheme (Temporary) provides a subsidy of €9,100 per employee over fifteen months to qualifying exporting enterprises in the manufacturing and/or internationally traded services sectors. "The INOU welcomed the introduction of the subsidy scheme however, if companies in the qualifying sectors are not applying for whatever reason, then consideration should be given to extending the scheme to other sectors where jobs are being lost", John concluded.

 

For further information contact:
John Stewart, INOU Co-ordinator (01) 856 0088