Economic crisis is jobs crisis
Issued : Monday 6 April, 2009
Statement by Eamon Gilmore TD
Leader of the Labour Party, Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs & Trade
Ireland's economic crisis is a jobs crisis. Every person who becomes unemployed represents a €20,000 annual cost to the Exchequer, between social welfare payments and lost taxes.
173,000 extra people on the live register over the past 12 months has cost the Exchequer €3.5 billion. The more people who continue to lose their jobs, and the longer people stay on the live register, the more expenditure in other areas will have to be cut to pay for it.
It simply doesn't make sense. We are cutting front-line expenditure to pay for unemployment, instead of investing that money in keeping jobs, or the skills that will keep people out of long-term unemployment.
The greatest false economy is to pay people to do nothing. Our ideas are common sense: during this downturn, a large proportion of our labour force is going to spend time on the dole. It should be as easy as possible for this period to be spent constructively, and in particular in a way that will help people get back into employment when the economy starts to recover.
Our proposals on skills all cost less than the €20,000 per head, per year, that it costs to keep someone on the dole. Investing in skills prevents long-term unemployment, which will save us a lot of money in the long run. But equally as important is the need to be ready for new kinds of jobs, which will come with a global upswing.
The global trend is towards more knowledge-intensive jobs. If Ireland is going to be able to compete for foreign investment, a skilled, flexible and modern labour force will be essential. We have to get Ireland back to work in the short-term, but our goal will be to keep Ireland at work into the future.
In 2006, the Expert Group on Future Skills Needs estimated that half a million people already in our workforce had to move up at least one skill level if we were to compete for 21st century jobs and investment. This is as true now as it was then. We cannot afford to be blinded to the long-term needs of our economy; if we are, we will be playing catch-up in the years and decades to come.
