Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 10 October 2013
14. Deputy Michael Moynihan asked the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the actions he will take to deal with the emigration of highly skilled persons; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42733/13]
View answerThe focus of our Action Plan for Jobs is to promote job growth in the enterprise sectors. This is the most effective way to deal with the emigration and in particular the emigration of those with high skills. As the Deputy knows, data from the CSO has confirmed that the Enterprise sector has created 39,000 additional jobs in the past twelve months. The break down by nationality estimates that over 90% of these jobs went to Irish nationals.
One of the policy issues which we are focussing upon is the skills mismatch between job opportunities arising and the skills of persons entering the labour market.
The level of net emigration in the past few years has been 33/34,000. Within this number there has been a significant rise in the number of Irish nationals leaving. There are currently no statistics available on the skills profile of recent Irish emigrants. The impact of migration on the labour market and available skills depends on a range of factors including, for example, the age at which people migrate, whether they are of working age and their occupational skillset.
The Expert Group on Future Skills Needs, which reports to both myself and the Minister for Education and Skills, plays a key role in advising on future enterprise skills needs and emerging gaps. The work of the expert group informs the selection of new targeted programmes designed to provide interventions to tackle the skills shortages in particular sectors of the economy, e.g. Springboard, Momentum and the ICT skills conversion initiative, which was introduced as part of the ICT Action Plan. In 2013, there will be continued targeted investment in over 430,000 part-time and full-time places across the further and higher education and training sectors, all of which are open to unemployed people including young people and the long-term unemployed. This investment includes the provision of the Skillnets Training Networks Programme, which is enterprise-led by nature, where the development of training is led by representatives of industry to ensure that training provision meets the identified needs of the network stakeholders and companies.
The aim of the Action Plan for Jobs is to support the creation of 100,000 net new jobs by 2016, while the objective of Pathways to Work is to provide those who are unemployed with the appropriate training and skills to avail of the job opportunities which will arise as the economy recovers.
Even with continued job losses in more traditional sectors such as Construction, and Financial, Insurance and Administrative activities, we have seen an increase in employment in sectors targeted by the Action Plan for Jobs, for example Tourism Agri-food, ICT and Digital Gaming. These developments demonstrate the transformation which is taking place in the economy which had become too dependent on the Construction sector and domestic demand to support economic growth.
By continuing the process of transforming our economy step by step through the Action Plan for Jobs, we aim to provide opportunities for those who wish to continue to live and work in Ireland.
