Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 17 June 2004
33 Mr. R. Bruton asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the number of industrial jobs her Department expects will be lost here in 2004; the reasons for the losses; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [17942/04]
View answerIt is not possible to predict with any accuracy the future decisions of companies regarding industrial employment, nor is it my intention to try to do so. In terms of job losses in the year to date, however, manufacturing redundancies notified to my Department to the end of May were around 3,900, compared with just over 4,300 in the same period last year.
On balance the outlook for the economy is good, with both the OECD and the ESRI expecting economic growth to recover this year to around 3.5%, reaching 4.5% in 2005 from a low of 1.5% in 2003. Over the medium term, Ireland is expected to revert to its potential growth rate of 5% as we continue to reap the benefits from our fast-growing labour force and strong position in high-technology sectors. The ESRI also expects that employment will continue to expand, rising to about 1.84 million next year.
We are a vibrant market economy where new jobs are generated by entrepreneurial activity while other jobs are lost due to a myriad of factors, including technology developments, competitive pressures etc. Industrial employment is a key element of our economy and will be in the future. While industrial employment has declined in the past couple of years, we must view those losses against employment expansion in the broader economy. Since 1998, over 270,000 jobs have been created, and the unemployment rate is among the lowest in the European Union and significantly lower than that in France, Germany, Finland or Sweden. That has been helped in no small part by my Government's economic policies and my Department's support for enterprise through its agencies. The quarterly national household survey, or QNHS, prepared by the Central Statistics Office, shows that employment grew in 2003, with an increase of 44,600 or 2.5% in the September to November year-on-year position. Full-time employment accounted for over three quarters of the annual increase.
My Department and agencies are committed to the task of reinvigorating regions where job losses occur through the attraction of new investment. In the future, sustainable employment will be based on competitiveness, higher productivity and the application of technology in both existing and new enterprises. The challenge is to assist companies to move into the type of higher value-added activities that will provide well-paid jobs for our increasingly educated workforce. We are meeting that challenge as the enterprise development agencies re-engineer their support programmes to help clients improve competitiveness, innovation and research and development and smooth their transition to higher-value and more profitable activities.
