The factors contributing to emerging recruitment difficulties are complex and diverse. They include record job creation in the three years to April 1996 during which period employment rose by 140,000. This trend is expected to continue this year; the pressure of demand in the availability of skills in certain areas; the apparent reluctance among some employers to recruit long-term unemployed persons; the wages and other conditions of employment on offer, especially at the lower levels, and the interaction between these and the tax and social welfare system. Initiatives in the recent budget will help in this regard. In addition, a range of measures has been introduced to ease the transition of unemployed persons into work, such as Jobstart, back-to-work allowance scheme, retention of secondary benefits, etc.
I have noted the findings of the recent survey by ISME and indeed by SFA. My officials will be meeting with both bodies to explore with them the lessons to be learnt from these studies and to develop appropriate policy responses. In particular, we would hope, with the co-operation of these organisations, to work with them in tracking in detail a control sample of vacancies so as to get more empirical evidence both of the particular difficulties being encountered by small employers in filling vacancies and of the reasons people are not apparently taking the jobs on offer.
The Government's strategy, in relation to employment policy, was outlined in the strategy paper —"Growing and Sharing our Employment"— which I published in April 1996. This strategy outlined the Government's twin goals — to maximise the creation of sustainable employment and to ensure that it is shared more equally throughout Irish society. As part of the strategy for improved access to jobs, several initiatives have been introduced and the Government has in place a range of responses to help meet the needs of the labour market.