Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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91. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation while welcoming the small increase in total employment in the year to June 2013, if he is concerned that the numbers in work for the 25-34 and 20-24 age groups actually declined in the same period. [42823/13]

Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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The latest information from the Quarterly National Household Survey (QHNS) shows an annual increase in employment of 1.8% or 33,800 in the year to the second quarter of 2013, bringing total employment to 1,869,900.

The largest annual increases in employment were in the 35-44 (+16,600 or +3.4%) and 45-54 (+15,800 or +4.0%) age groups. The annual decreases in employment recorded were in the 20-24 (-2,100 or -1.7%) and the 25-34 (-11,900 or -2.3%) age groups.

While a decrease in employment is always a cause for concern, the results for these two age cohorts have to be viewed in the light of three critical factors. First, the increased rate of young persons staying on longer in education; secondly, increased emigration; and thirdly, the overall demographic decline for these two cohorts. It may also be noted that while the numbers employed in these two cohorts declined over the twelve month period, both age groups experienced small increases in the numbers employed between quarter 1 and quarter 2 of 2013 (by 3.2% and 0.4% respectively).

The Government's approach to tackling the issue of jobs growth and unemployment is through the twin strategies deriving from the Action Plan for Jobs and Pathways to Work . The primary strategy to tackle all forms of unemployment, including youth unemployment, is to create the environment for a strong economic recovery by promoting competitiveness and productivity. Economic recovery will underpin jobs growth. Past experience suggests that youth unemployment, which tends to rise relatively rapidly in a downturn, can be expected to fall relatively rapidly during the recovery. In addition to this economic growth and competitiveness strategy there are a number of programmes and services to assist unemployed persons and keep jobseekers close to the labour market. With limited exceptions, these approaches are not age-specific - they are available to all unemployed people on the same basis.

The 2013 Action Plan for Jobs contains a total of 333 actions for delivery across all Government Departments and 46 State agencies. Among the measures being delivered are:

- JobsPlus , a scheme to provide regular cash payments to employers to offset wage costs where they employ people who have been on the Live Register for over 12 months;

- the roll-out of 31 Local Enterprise Offices across the country, a network of first-stop shops to deliver world-class services to start-ups and micro-businesses in every county in the country;

- a new €175 million Seed and Venture Capital Scheme, aimed at leveraging private sector funds to provide a total of €700million in funding to high-growth Irish companies with the potential to grow employment, as well as mentoring and networks;

- a National Step Change Initiative for manufacturing businesses, as part of the Government's plan to supply 20,000 additional jobs in the sector.

Pathways to Work 2013 , the Government's 50-point action plan to fight long-term unemployment builds on the progress made over the past year by the Government to tackle the unemployment challenge. Increasingly, the Department of Social Protection's referrals for job-search assistance and guidance is based on profiling people at the beginning of a spell of unemployment, so as to focus resources on those most in need at an early stage.

During our recent EU Presidency, Ireland succeeded in achieving agreement among Member States on the introduction of a Youth Guarantee. This agreement provides that Member States “shouldensure that all young people under the age of 25 years receive a good quality offer of employment, continued education, an apprenticeship or a traineeship within a period of four months of becoming unemployed or leaving formal education.” The Department of Social Protection has primary responsibility for implementing the Youth Guarantee in Ireland. An interdepartmental Group chaired by the Department of Social Protection has been established and includes representation from my Department. The group will co-ordinate the production of an implementation plan for the Youth Guarantee which will be submitted to Government in December 2013. A number of pilot projects will be run across the EU ahead of full implementation of the Guarantee, and a pilot project will be implemented in the Ballymun area in Dublin.

Official employment figures recently published by the CSO indicate that the Government's twin strategy approach is making progress. Figures show that the private sector has been adding an average of more than 2,000 jobs per month since the Government published and commenced implementing the Action Plan for Jobs in early 2012.