Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Independent)
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Question 107: To ask the Minister for Finance the forecast number of jobs to be created in the next one, two and five years resulting from the jobs initiative, broken down by all categories available part-time, full-time, seasonal, by sector and by location. [17313/11]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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As I said at the time, the measures announced in the Jobs Initiative represent the first steps by this government to increase competitiveness in important sectors in the economy and to improve the functioning of our labour market. As the Deputy will appreciate, given the high level of uncertainty that continues to surround the outlook, it is very difficult to quantify the exact number of jobs that the Initiative will create. From a sectoral perspective, the measures will help to support employment throughout the economy. In the labour intensive tourism sector, for example, the introduction of a temporary second reduced rate of VAT and reduction of the air travel tax to zero will have a positive impact on both costs and sentiment. In the construction sector there will be an increased focus on capital works which tend to be more labour intensive. More generally, the decision to halve the lower rate of PRSI until the end of 2013 on jobs that pay up to €356 per week will help to create and maintain jobs in the lower paid sectors of the economy.

The following table outlines my Department's latest employment forecasts which were set out in the Irish Stability Programme Update published at end-April. Given that recovery in the labour market tends to lag that in the overall economy, a further decline in net employment is anticipated this year. This is borne out in recently published data, which show that net employment creation continued to decline in the first quarter of the year, but it did so at its slowest pace for three years.

The economy should start to create net jobs once again in 2012, and the pace of employment growth should strengthen in subsequent years as the economic recovery strengthens and broadens out. Over the period 2012 to 2015 as a whole around 100,000 net jobs are expected to be created.

Table – Employment forecasts, 2011 to 2015

Table – Employment forecasts, 2011 to 2015