Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 5 June 2014
11. Deputy Thomas P. Broughan asked the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the actions he will take to provide more sustainable employment opportunities for persons employed under zero hour contracts or for those in part-time employment who are seeking full-time employment. [17573/14]
View answerThe objective of the Action Plan for Jobs is to support sustainable job creation by creating the operating conditions where more businesses can start-up and grow.
The increase in total employment of 42,700 in the year to Q1 2014 was made up of an increase in full-time employment of 46,400 (+3.3%) while part-time employment declined by 3,700 (-0.8%). This is in sharp contrast to the rest of the EU where there has been steady growth in the number of employees working part-time and the number of fulltime workers has continued to fall.
Much of our jobs growth is in sectors which we have targeted in the Action Plan for Jobs, such as Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing, Accommodation and Food Services, and Industry. The 2014 Action Plan for Jobs, which was published at the end of February, contains 385 discrete actions across a wide range of sectors to support competitiveness and job creation.
The efforts of IDA Ireland and Enterprise Ireland are geared to creating full-time employment rather than part-time employment and this is reflected in their employment trends. Jobs Plus, the Department of Social Protection’s employer incentive scheme, has helped recruit 2,115 long-term unemployed jobseekers from the Live Register to fill full-time positions since its introduction last July, and is deliberately designed to encourage employers to provide full time jobs.
The change reflected in the reduction of part-time employment relative to the increase in permanent and/or full-time contracts in Ireland contrasts with the position at EU aggregate level. While full time employment is the focus of our policy efforts, I recognise that in Ireland as indeed throughout Europe, temporary and part-time jobs are a contribution to job creation since in the medium to long run they may act as a stepping stone to permanent and/or full-time contracts.
I appreciate the Deputy’s concerns about the way in which zero hour contracts can operate. I have, on previous occasions, pointed out that the manner in which these contracts are regulated in Ireland differs from the position in the United Kingdom, where they have generated greater controversy. In particular, workers engaged under mutually agreed zero hour contracts in Ireland are entitled to compensation where shifts for zero-hours workers are cancelled at short notice.
