Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 8 November 2018
117. Deputy Billy Kelleher asked the Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation the regional job targets and unemployment rate projections under A Programme for a Partnership Government for 2020 and Enterprise 2025, by year and region; the latest figures relating to these targets; the monitoring and reporting mechanisms in place; her job targets up to 2020, by region in tabular form; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [46374/18]
View answerThe Programme for Partnership Government set a target of 200,000 new jobs to be created by 2020, with 135,000 of these outside of Dublin.
Enterprise 2025 Renewed, launched on 9th March 2018, sets out a revised target to have at least 2.3 million people in employment by 2020. The objective is to ensure that, through effective policies, we realise employment growth that is sustainable over the longer term to 2025. The aim in Enterprise 2025 Renewed is to maintain an unemployment rate at no more than 5.5% nationally over the longer term. The aim also is to realise the potential of our regions so that unemployment is within 1 percentage point of the national average.
Employment continues to grow strongly with total employment in Q2 2018 of 2,255,000. The monthly unemployment rate is now 5.3% (October 2018).
Enterprise 2025 Renewed does not set out targets on an annual basis. Nevertheless, the Action Plan for Jobs 2018 (launched together with Enterprise 2025 Renewed), which sets out specific actions to be taken across Government this year, targets the creation of 50,000 jobs in 2018. The APJ process involves a bi-annual monitoring process and produces a report that sets out progress on job creation and in relation to each individual action by Departments.
Enterprise 2025 Renewed and the Action Plan for Jobs are complemented by the Regional Action Plan for Jobs (RAPJs). A key ambition of the RAPJs is to see an increase of 10-15% in numbers employed in every region from the baseline year (2015) to 2020, and for each region’s unemployment rate to be within 1 percentage point of the national average.
Numerical employment targets were published on this basis for each region at the launch of each RAPJ. These figures are listed in Table 1, along with progress in employment and current unemployment rates.
Separately, the regional NUTS boundaries were amended on the 21st November 2016 under Regulation (EC) No.2066/2016 and took effect from the 1st January 2018.
As a result, new regional classification groupings have been introduced for Ireland. A summary of these changes at NUTS 3 level is outlined in Table 2.
Furthermore, regional employment data is drawn from the CSO’s Labour Force Survey, previously the Quarterly National Household Survey. Since Q1 2018, CSO Labour Force Survey contains data for the new NUTS 3 configurations.
While employment targets were originally based on the old NUTS 3 regional groupings, current employment data is based on the new configuration that entered into effect in January 2018. As a result, data for some regions cannot be as reliably compared as others with their original targets set in 2015.
My Department is currently working to review and revise regional employment targets in light of the changes to NUTS 3 configurations, new CSO Labour Force Survey methodology, and the revised national employment growth target set out in Enterprise 2025 Renewed.
The monitoring of actions under the Regional Action Plan for Jobs is coordinated by my Department in conjunction with the Regional Implementation Committees, Programme Managers and Secretariats in each of the eight regions. This information is collated through an online reporting tool, managed by my Department. Each Action in the RAPJ has a nominated “owner” of the Action, depending on its area of focus. In the original eight Regional Action Plan for Jobs, there were 1,276 actions.
To date, my Department has published two Progress Reports per region, which are available on the Department's website, with the third and fourth Progress Reports currently being finalised. The fourth Progress Reports will be the final reports under the current iteration of the RAPJs, closing out the narratives on Actions for the 2015 – 2017 period.
My current focus, and that of my Department, is on undertaking a refresh and refocus of the Regional Action Plan for Jobs through to 2020. In April 2018, I asked each RAPJ Implementation Committee to lead this refresh and refocus process to ensure their Plan's relevance out to 2020 and to focus on a smaller number of strategic objectives for their region, with the emphasis on additionality and collaborative approaches.
Each Committee is leading the refresh of their own Plans, looking particularly at building on each region’s own competitive strengths – developing areas that are already strong and exploring new sectorial opportunities - while also examining regional vulnerabilities and/or potential barriers to investment or enterprise activity. My Department is working closely with each Committee in this process which is ongoing.
On Wednesday 17th October, I met with the Regional Implementation Committee Chairpersons to hear directly from them the work that they have undertaken in conjunction with the Department since April including the Strategic Objectives and associated actions that are under consideration for each region's refreshed Plan.
Table 1: Regional Employment Performance against 2020 Targets
|
Region |
2020 Employment Growth Target (pre-2018 NUTS3 regional groupings) |
Increase in employment Q1 2015 – Q2 20171 (pre-2018 NUTS3 regional groupings) |
Increase in employment Q1 2015 – Q2 2018 (new NUTS3 regional groupings)2 |
Unemployment Rate Q2 2018 (new NUTS 3 regional groupings) |
|
Border |
28,000 |
12,000 |
4,400 (excl Louth) |
6.5% |
|
Midland |
14,000 |
9,500 |
15,300 |
9.7% |
|
West |
25,000 |
15,500 |
22,700 |
6.7% |
|
Dublin |
66,000 |
48,200 |
94,200 |
5.3% |
|
Mid-East |
25,000 |
19,300 |
32,900 (incl Louth) |
5.8% |
|
Mid-West |
23,000 |
16,600 |
17,700 (incl Sth Tipperary) |
5.8% |
|
South-East |
25,000 |
16,200 |
21,300 (excl Sth Tipperary) |
7.2% |
|
South-West |
40,000 |
29,400 |
32,100 |
5.3% |
|
State |
246,000 |
166,800 |
240,600 |
6% |
