The OECD, when assessing the Irish labour market, claims it is not just a simple matter of lowering social welfare rates to encourage employment but actually about having proper activation measures or strategies to return people to work. This means having a hands-on approach with the unemployed involving constant attention and compulsory consultation from State employment bodies to move people back into the workplace. The OECD cites international experience of countries without such measures enduring many years of high unemployment rates following an employment shock. Ireland does not have such measures, which results in a hands-off approach to the unemployed.

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