Social Welfare and part-time working

15 Jul 2010

It is extraordinary that at a time when Ireland continues to lose 100,000 full-time jobs per annum and is only seeing a small net increase in part-time jobs of less than 10,000 that the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Innovation is seeking to withdraw social welfare supports from part-time workers.

"Most workers who find themselves working part-time and signing-on for the remainder of the week have been put in this position by their employer," noted John Stewart, Co-ordinator with the INOU. "The INOU has been struck by how many employers opted to let staff go rather than reduce their hours as employers in other countries did in handling the impact of the recession on their businesses."

Minister O'Keeffe is right to be proud of the 26 jobs created per day since he became Minister. However, such job creation is but a drop in the ocean when at the same time there have been 177 redundancies and the Live Register has increased by 195 per day. Ireland would need to be creating ten times this amount of jobs to put any kind of dent in the Live Register which stands at unprecedented levels.

At a time of significant job loss and insufficient job creation, the social welfare system has a vital role to play in providing people with a living income. Given the negative commentary from the ESRI and the IMF on the employment growth over the coming year, the social welfare system also has an important role to play in supporting people to take up part-time, casual and short-term contract work. At present part-time work accounts for 17% of the Live Register. The reality is that this is the type of employment Ireland is likely to see more of in the immediate future, it will be at least a year if not longer before we return to growth in full-time employment.

Looking to the historical safety valve of emigration is not the way to progress Ireland's needs, Ireland needs a coherent Jobs Strategy and it needs it now! And a flexible work friendly social welfare system that also supports people.