Class A employer PRSI is payable on earnings at the rate of 10.75% in respect of weekly earnings in excess of €356 and at 8.5% on weekly earnings of €356 or less. As part of the 2011 Jobs Initiative, the Minister for Finance announced the halving of the 8.5% rate of employer PRSI to 4.25%, as a means of helping job creation and improving labour cost competitiveness, particularly in the tourism and other employment-rich areas of the economy. The measure was implemented on a 2½ year time limited basis to apply from 1 July 2011 until 31 December 2013. The 4.25% employer PRSI rate reverted to the original 8.5% rate from 1 January 2014.
As the reversion of the employer rate to 8.5% is provided for in legislation, it has already been built into the PRSI income base for 2014 and subsequent years. Re-introducing the 4.25% rate of employer PRSI in 2014 would reduce the expected PRSI yield to the Social Insurance Fund by €195 million in a full year. Such a re-introduction could only be considered in a Budgetary context.
Issues associated with the creation of employment opportunities are for my colleague the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation in the first instance. However, as part of the overall Government approach to unemployment, the Department of Social Protection operates a range of employment support measures designed to encourage and support social welfare recipients of working age to reduce their dependency on welfare payments. These measures include the back to education allowance scheme, Tús, JobBridge - the national internship scheme, the jobseeker's benefit and allowance schemes as they relate to casual and part-time workers and the part-time job incentive scheme.
