Niall Collins
Question:1904. Deputy Niall Collins asked the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the methodology used for job creation forecasts in Enterprise 2025; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [26426/16]
View answerFriday, 16 September 2016
Questions (1904, 1906)
Niall Collins
Question:1906. Deputy Niall Collins asked the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the methodology used for job creation forecasts in Enterprise 2025; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [26428/16]
View answerWritten answers
I propose to take Questions Nos. 1904 and 1906 together.
The Action Plan for Jobs is one of the Government's key instruments to support job creation. Since the launch of the first Plan in 2012, 176,000 more people are in employment, driven by growth in job openings in both the manufacturing and services sectors. Our target under the 2016 Action Plan for Jobs is to add 50,000 new jobs this year. We have made a good start. Over 36,000 new jobs were created in the six months of 2016.
Enterprise 2025 is a whole of enterprise strategy, aimed at delivering opportunities across all regions and across all sectors, including both manufacturing and services activities. It sets the ambition to achieve full employment that is sustainable and resilient over the longer term. Specifically it set the ambition to reach 2.180 million people in employment and an unemployment rate of 6 percent by 2020. The potential to reach 2.180 million in employment by 2020 is based on the premise of export-led growth and would see an additional 266,000 people at work from a 2014 base. The potential to achieve a 6 percent unemployment rate is at a faster pace than that set out in the projections prepared in the context of Budget 2016 which forecast a 6.5 percent unemployment rate by 2020. The enterprise development agencies, IDA Ireland and Enterprise Ireland play a key role in providing direct supports and services to export oriented enterprises. They are targeted with contributing circa 140,000 jobs (i.e. 75,000 direct jobs that will stimulate an additional 65,000 jobs indirectly) to the potential private sector employment growth to the period 2020. There is potential for a further 30,000 tourism related jobs.
Enterprise 2025 notes that we can strongly influence our chances of success by focusing on supporting the productive sector, enhancing our relative competitiveness, leveraging existing comparative advantage in key sectors, addressing structural issues in the economy, improving productivity and our capacity to innovate.
Through a partnership approach with enterprise, representative bodies, the enterprise development agencies, Local Enterprise Offices and others, delivering a step change in enterprise performance and resilience will see a significant increase in Irish owned companies of scale, contributing to Ireland’s reputation for innovation in international markets.
It is also about establishing a vibrant and stimulating ecosystem for entrepreneurship, in particular female entrepreneurship, to deliver an increase the number of start-ups by 25 percent per annum – start-ups that have better survival rates. We also need to ensure that individual enterprises, and the economy more generally, gain from impactful inter-firm relationships throughout the country, through stimulating the establishment of clusters of scale and international visibility in areas of strength. Ireland is, and will continue to be, the best place to succeed in business, delivering sustainable employment and higher standards of living for all.