Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 11 April 2017
372. Deputy Clare Daly asked the Minister for Social Protection the whole number totals used to calculate percentages for employment progression rates for unemployed persons on JobPath and not on JobPath, respectively, in the January 2017 JobPath performance report. [18019/17]
View answer373. Deputy Clare Daly asked the Minister for Social Protection his views on the fact that persons unemployed for one to two years and referred to JobPath in July to September 2015 were 9% less likely to be in employment than persons unemployed for one to two years who did not participate in JobPath as of 31 October 2016. [18020/17]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 372 and 373 together.
As the Deputy will be aware JobPath is a new approach to employment activation designed to support long-term unemployed people and those most at risk of becoming long-term unemployed to secure and sustain paid employment. Two companies, Turas Nua and Seetec, have been contracted by the Department to deliver the JobPath service.
Clients receive support for 52 weeks but this period may continue for up to 130 weeks e.g. where a person engages in further education/training (for up to 26 weeks) prior to securing employment and for at least 3 months and up to up to 52 weeks, while in employment. The earliest full outcomes can be measured is therefore at the end of this 24 – 30 month period.
The JobPath Performance Data Report referred to by the Deputy, was published in January 2017 and provides an interim assessment, in respect of the 1,266 people referred to the JobPath service in the period between July 2015 and September 2015 only.
Section 2 of the report included a simple comparison, at a point in time based on the Department’s own payment systems’ data between long term unemployed people who were not engaged with JobPath against jobseekers engaged with JobPath in this period. As stated in the report, this data is interim and does not for example take into account differing characteristics between both groups such as age, prior employment history and educational qualifications or differences in Job Start dates.
It is planned to carry out a full econometric evaluation of JobPath when participant numbers will have reached a level to support a rigorous assessment of performance. This evaluation will control for the above and other factors and will produce a more robust comparison.
