asked the Taoiseach if it is proposed to publish proposals for the expansion of employment this year.
3.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Expansion of Employment: Whole-Time Wage Earners.
2.
asked the Taoiseach if in view of the fact that there are 40,000 less wholetime wage earners in the State at present as compared with 1957 he will state what steps he proposes to take to remedy this situation.
I propose, with the permission of the Leas-Cheann Comhairle, to take Questions Nos. 2 and 3 together.
The statement that there are 40,000 less wholetime wage earners at present than there were in 1957 is not a correct representation of the facts. As I explained in my reply to a Dáil Question on the 25th November, analysis of the statistics indicates that about the autumn of 1956 a very sharp fall in employment began, which, by the beginning of 1957, amounted to a reduction in employment of about 40,000. By the beginning of 1958 a check in the fall had occurred, and during 1958 relatively little change took place.
As indicated in the estimate given in a reply to another Dáil Question on the 11th November, the weekly average number of persons in insurable employment during the year ended 31st March, 1959, was 25,700 less than the weekly average number of persons in insurable employment during the year ended 31st March, 1957. Since the beginning of 1959 there has been a marked upward trend.
Perhaps I should repeat in this connection that, apart from a general census, there are no means of ascertaining the total number of persons in whole-time employment at a specific date. There are quarterly statistics relating to persons engaged in transportable goods industries and annual statistics relating to employees and other male persons engaged in agriculture, but the employees in the personal service, commercial, etc., sectors of the employment field, representing over one-third of the total number in insurable employment, are not the subject of either quarterly or annual statistics. The best indication of the general employment position is obtained from the estimates of average numbers of persons in insurable employment derived from the quarterly statistics of insurance stamps sold.
I am not clear as to what either Deputy has in mind about publishing proposals in connection with unemployment. Every economic proposal made by the Government, in a number of Bills presented to the Dáil in the present year, to implement the Programme for Economic Expansion or otherwise, has a bearing on the employment situation, and has among its chief objects the promotion of conditions in which there will be increased opportunities of employment.
Did the Taoiseach say that from the beginning of 1959 there was an upward trend?
Yes.
Does the Taoiseach mean the calendar year?
Yes.
Will the Taoiseach explain how it is then that in the first quarter of 1959, the number of insurance cards sold was less than the number sold in the first quarter of 1958?
I shall be giving the correct figures in my reply to the next question.
For the purpose of clarification, could the Taoiseach tell us is it or is it not correct that, on the figures furnished by him to the House as the last available figures for the years 1956, 1957 and 1958, there was a reduction in the number of persons employed in each of the years mentioned by him on that occasion?
There is no point in getting into an argument about the exact significance of statistics which are themselves of doubtful validity. The point I was making was that there are three categories of employees in respect of whom information is necessary to enable any estimate to be given. In the first category are those engaged in industry, in the manufacture of transportable goods, or similar industrial occupations. In relation to persons so engaged, there are quarterly figures available and it is possible to produce an annual average number based upon them. In the second category are persons engaged in agriculture and there are figures representing those who are so occupied—male persons—whether as employees or farm owners and those figures relate only to one date in each year and give no indication of any seasonal fluctuations or any changes in the employment situation occuring within the year. In the third category are those engaged in hotels, in commerce and finance and all the other groups that are neither industrial nor agricultural. There are no figures at all for that category of persons which represents as much as one-third of the total labour force of the country. Any figures that may be published regarding the total number of persons in employment at any time are, at best, very inaccurate guesses. The only certainty of getting the precise figure for any date is through a census.
Is it not so that in the figures the Taoiseach gave us on a previous occasion—the only figures available to us—there was shown a decline in the total number of persons employed? Each of the three years mentioned, 1956, 1957 and 1958, showed a decline from the present year.
The position as I have said in reply to the question, is that there was a very sharp fall in the number of persons in employment in the last quarter of 1956 which continued almost to the end of 1957. It did not stop until approaching the end of that year.
Though the Taoiseach told the people he would stop it the day he got into office.
For the next 12 months, the position remained more or less static and it is only in this year that the upward trend has begun.
Is it not a fact——
On what figures is the Taoiseach basing the upward trend?
Is it not a fact that the sale of insurance stamps in the first quarter of this year was less than the sale of stamps in the first quarter of the preceding year.
Question No. 4.
The exact figures were given three days ago by the Statistics Office and the Taoiseach should know them.
Apart from the figures, will the Taoiseach state what steps he is going to take to remedy the situation? He admitted that there were 25,000 less——
That is a separate question.
I have it down here. I asked the Taoiseach if "he will state what steps he proposes to take to remedy this situation"?
That has been done.
What has been the result?
If the Deputy will wait until I answer the next Question I shall let him know.