Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Question 91: To ask the Minister for Finance when he expects the jobs initiative, which took effect on 1 July 2011, to begin having a positive effect on the live register figures-CSO's quarterly national household survey measure of unemployment. [25530/11]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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The latest Quarterly National Household Survey data revealed that employment recorded its lowest quarter of contraction since the crisis began in Q2, as it continued to move towards stabilisation. Furthermore, 8 of the 14 economic sectors were net job creators over the second quarter, including the private sector as a whole. However, the data also confirmed that unemployment remains unacceptably high; in seasonally adjusted terms there were over 300,000 people unemployed in the quarter, resulting in an unemployment rate of 14.2 per cent. Subsequent months have seen an increase in the live register, and there were almost 470,000 people signing on in August. Reflecting seasonal factors this figure is expected to decline in the coming months, but will nevertheless remain at an elevated level. While the broad consensus, amongst the major international organisations and domestic forecasters, is that the Irish economy will return to annual growth this year, recovery in the labour market typically lags recovery in overall activity. As a result, net employment is expected to decline once again for this year as a whole, albeit at a much slower pace than in previous years, before gradually strengthening in the coming years.

This net figure represents gross flows into and out of employment in the various sectors and as a result it is very difficult to quantify the number of jobs that the Jobs Initiative will deliver. Anecdotal evidence, however, from the high value added tourism sector for example, would suggest that they are already having some positive impact in sustaining and generating employment.