Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 17 February 2015
205. Deputy Tom Fleming asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Social Protection if she will provide, in tabular form, the statistics for youth unemployment in each county as at 31 December 2014; the number of persons that received a youth guarantee offer in 2014; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [7150/15]
View answerThe Government's primary strategy to tackle youth unemployment is through policies to create the environment for a strong economic recovery by promoting competitiveness and productivity. Economic recovery will underpin jobs growth and the availability of productive employment for young people. This strategy has been succeeding, with an increase of over 80,000 in employment over the last two years.
Reflecting the improvement in the labour market, youth unemployment continues to fall. For example the youth unemployment rate in Ireland as estimated by Eurostat was 21.6% in December 2014 as compared to 30.8% in December 2011, and under the 25% threshold which formed the basis for funding of Youth Guarantee measures under the Youth Employment Initiative. However, the Government recognises that as the recovery takes hold, there is a need for additional measures to ensure that as many as possible of the jobs created are taken up by jobseekers and young jobseekers in particular. This is the rationale behind the Government's Pathways to Work strategy and the Youth Guarantee Implementation Plan.
The Youth Guarantee sets a medium-term objective of ensuring that young people receive an offer of employment within four months of becoming unemployed. As set out in the Youth Guarantee Implementation Plan the Government intends to deliver on this objective by changing its activation process to ensure that young people benefit from earlier and more frequent engagement with case officers, by earmarking places on existing employment and training programmes for young people and by introducing some new programmes such as FirstSteps and JobPlus Youth. FirstSteps aims to offer young people you are particularly distant from the labour market a work experience opportunity with sponsor employers. In line with the Youth Guarantee commitment JobsPlus Youth offers employers who recruit a young person under 25 years of age who was unemployed for four months or more a subsidy of up to €416 per month. The duration unemployed threshold for other age cohorts is 12 months.
The Tánaiste launched FirstSteps and JobsPlus Youth on 4th February and the new process for engaging with young people in Intreo centres is currently being deployed; earmarked places on schemes such as Momentum were implemented in 2014 and the number of young people who accessed these places, including the reserved places is set out in the Table 1.
Table 1 Youth Guarantee Progress to date*
|
Programme |
Expected full-year intake |
2014 |
2015 YTD |
Note |
|
Youthreach/CTC |
3,300 |
3553 |
CTC starters end Dec -- including Youthreach 1800 persons |
|
|
JobBridge (including developmental internship) |
5,000 |
3138 |
191 |
As of end January 2015 |
|
Tús |
1,000 |
1410 |
As of 30th November 2014 |
|
|
JobsPlus |
1,500 |
410 |
19 |
As of end Jan 15- U25 estimated as 14.7% of total starters in 2015 (127) |
|
Momentum |
2,000 |
631 |
132 |
As of 5th Feb 2015 |
|
BTEA (excl Momentum) |
3,300 |
2319 |
As of 14th October |
|
|
BTWEA |
200 |
139 |
Including 5 persons on STEA |
|
|
VTOS |
500 |
672 |
Estimated U25 unemployed entrants |
|
|
FAS/Solas |
9,500 |
8027 |
Based on SST, Traineeship, Bridging & LTI starters YTD (end December) |
|
|
CEB youth Entrepreneurship |
Not yet commenced |
|||
|
Training and Mentoring supports |
700 |
|||
|
CEB/MFI micro-loans for young people |
150 |
10 |
23rd Dec 2014 |
|
|
International Work Experience and Training |
250 |
Not yet commenced |
||
|
Gateway |
450 |
192 |
30th November 2014 |
|
|
Community Employment |
500 |
600 |
45 |
End January 2015 |
|
Total |
28,350 |
21,101 |
387 |
*Excluding where figures are not available |
The official measure of unemployment is sourced from the Quarterly National Household Survey (QNHS). It provides a measure of unemployment at national and regional levels, but not at the county level.
However, the Live Register, which captures those registering for unemployment benefits (but includes those working part-time and in casual work who draw partial unemployment payments), provides an indication of trends at county level. I have, accordingly, provided in Table 2 the number of young people on the Live Register in each county as at 31st December 2014, with the data for 31st December 2011 included for comparison. The total was 47,928 in 2014 and 75,556 in 2011.
Table 2 Young people on the Live Register as at December 2014 and December 2011
|
Dec-11 |
Dec-14 |
Change Dec-11 Dec-14 |
|
|
State |
75556 |
47928 |
-27628 |
|
Carlow County |
1316 |
893 |
-423 |
|
Cavan County |
1321 |
916 |
-405 |
|
Clare County |
1631 |
1111 |
-520 |
|
Cork County |
6849 |
3707 |
-3142 |
|
Donegal County |
4334 |
2828 |
-1506 |
|
Dublin County |
18099 |
11304 |
-6795 |
|
Galway County |
3791 |
2263 |
-1528 |
|
Kerry County |
2570 |
1487 |
-1083 |
|
Kildare County |
2903 |
2115 |
-788 |
|
Kilkenny County |
1220 |
751 |
-469 |
|
Laoighis County |
1578 |
1151 |
-427 |
|
Leitrim County |
555 |
384 |
-171 |
|
Limerick County |
3588 |
2121 |
-1467 |
|
Longford County |
936 |
591 |
-345 |
|
Louth County |
3198 |
2060 |
-1138 |
|
Mayo County |
2306 |
1433 |
-873 |
|
Meath County |
1885 |
1187 |
-698 |
|
Monaghan County |
1015 |
652 |
-363 |
|
North Tipperary |
1331 |
936 |
-395 |
|
Offaly County |
1767 |
1298 |
-469 |
|
Roscommon County |
699 |
438 |
-261 |
|
Sligo County |
929 |
607 |
-322 |
|
South Tipperary |
1722 |
1130 |
-592 |
|
Waterford County |
2525 |
1516 |
-1009 |
|
Westmeath County |
1858 |
1280 |
-578 |
|
Wexford County |
3622 |
2384 |
-1238 |
|
Wicklow County |
2008 |
1385 |
-623 |
Source: CSO
