Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 5 June 2014
1. Deputy Dara Calleary asked the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation to set out his views on the fall in the rate of growth in employment in the first quarter of the year as highlighted in the quarterly national household survey; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [23849/14]
View answerThe quarterly household survey published last week showed a dramatic slowdown in the level of job creation. I seek the Minister's views on the matter.
I imagine Deputy Tóibín would agree with me in respect of my next question. With leniency from the Leas-Cheann Comhairle, I call on the Minister to update the House on the current situation at Bausch and Lomb. We have sought to raise this as a matter - I can speak for Deputy Tóibín - as a matter for the Topical Issue debate. We have applied again today but we have been unsuccessful. Will the Minister outline his involvement, his knowledge of the situation and when he became aware of it?
We have made significant gains over the past two years and employment has now grown on an annual basis for six quarters in succession. By comparison, when this Government came into office the economy was losing an average of 1,600 jobs per week. Furthermore, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate has fallen from 15.1% at the start of 2012 to 12% in 2014.
The quarterly national household survey headline figures show an annual increase of 42,700 people in employment in the 12 months ending in the first quarter of 2014. On a seasonally adjusted basis, employment in the first quarter of 2014 increased by 1,700 on the previous quarter. This represents a year-on-year increase of 2.3% in the number of people in employment and the highest percentage increase in employment in quarter one since 2007.
Many indicators give grounds for confidence that job growth can be sustained. Nevertheless, the first quarter figures are a reminder that we need to work relentlessly to improve our competitiveness, increase productivity and develop sectoral opportunities where Ireland has particular strengths. We are doing this through the Action Plan for Jobs process, which this year places a particular focus on supporting entrepreneurship, manufacturing and strengthening our platform overseas for winning new business.
The 2014 Action Plan for Jobs includes targets for the IDA Ireland, Enterprise Ireland and the new local enterprise offices to support a total of 30,500 direct new jobs during 2014. At this point in the year the indications are that these targets are on track. The work of the enterprise agencies will be supplemented by our efforts to support the recovery of the domestic economy in areas such as construction, retail and tourism. The action plan has also placed a strong emphasis on yielding job gains through new disruptive reforms introduced in 2014 and, as I have already mentioned, entrepreneurship, winning abroad and a national step-change in manufacturing.
The Government recently published a new strategy for the construction sector and we are reviewing our national tourism policy following a public consultation process. The new retail consultation forum has been established and will hold its inaugural meeting next week.
Of the 14 sectors which provide data for the quarterly household survey, a total of nine recorded quarter-on-quarter declines in seasonally adjusted terms, four showed increases and one showed no change. It shows a particularly big hit for those aged under 35 years and the lowest age cohort.
The Minister referred to retail. Fully 5,000 jobs were lost in retail in the first quarter. I got a sense during the election campaign - it was one of the lessons and was evident in the feedback - that despite all the talk of economic recovery, it is not being felt. The notion of more self-employed people has far more to do with a quirk in and a consequence of social welfare legislation than people actually setting up their own business. People are classifying themselves as self-employed to try to get benefits because the system is forcing them to do so. That is where the growth is coming from.
When we speak to people away from the spin, action plans and task forces we can see that people are suffering the consequences of unemployment and they do not see these jobs or any job creation. The quarterly household survey is the broadest measure and shows that the reality is also relevant to that survey.
Did the survey act as a wake-up call to the Department, the Minister and his colleagues in government? I realise it came on a day when people were distracted with other news and in that context I wish the Minister of State, Deputy Sherlock, every success in his quest for a new job.
I remind the Minister that we asked about Bausch and Lomb as well.
I assure Deputy Calleary that neither I nor my Department needs any wake-up call in terms of the scale of the employment challenge we face. One of the features of our work has been to systematically engage an all-of-Government focus on this singular national challenge.
Let us consider the performance to date. We have in the past 18 months seen 70,000 extra people at work, the vast majority of whom are in full-time jobs. That puts us at the top of the OECD league in terms of jobs growth. Certainly, it is not enough to impact on the scale of the problems we face. I agree with the Deputy when he says that people do not yet feel the impact of this change. I agree that we need to continuously challenge the way in which we approach development in the jobs area. That is one of the merits of the Action Plan for Jobs process, in that every year we expose it to public consultation and every year we initiate new actions to respond to the challenges that different sectors are experiencing.
On the positive side, we should recognise that various surveys of business confidence, business intention and order books show that there is still a positive direction in growth. We believe we can build on that positive thrust.
That confidence is not translating through. The difficulty is that people are getting very frustrated when they continue to read about it. There is also difficulty when the chief executive of a job creation agency, a man for whom I have a good deal of regard and an organisation for which I have superb regard, comes out as a rallying agent for pay and wage reductions. That represents money that will be taken out of the domestic economy. It will affect the jobs we are talking about, such as those in retail and services. Furthermore, it will affect the ability of Waterford to ride this wave of confidence of which the Minister speaks. When the chief executive of a State-funded agency is acting with a rallying call for that kind of decision being taken by corporate companies, it sends a rather poor message.
The chief executive of any State agency must respond to the challenges that he experiences. I do not seek to control or influence that. We need to have people speaking honestly to power, as has been said often. Clearly, we need to improve our competitiveness all the time.
This is not an optional add-on. We are competing in a tough global environment but this year we have put new people into the field in overseas markets through the IDA and Enterprise Ireland. We are on a journey to move away from an economy that became too dependent on property, which was underpinned by bad policies. It will take time for new policies to deliver results. The 70,000 jobs represents genuine progress and we want to build on it. I have set a target of 100,000 extra people at work by 2016.
