Written answers

Tuesday, 17 February 2015

Department of Social Protection

Youth Unemployment Data

Photo of Tom FlemingTom Fleming (Kerry South, Independent)
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205. To ask the Minister for Social Protection if she will provide, in tabular form, the statistics for youth unemployment in each county as at 31 December 2014; the number of persons that received a youth guarantee offer in 2014; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [7150/15]

Photo of Kevin HumphreysKevin Humphreys (Dublin South East, Labour)
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The Government's primary strategy to tackle youth unemployment is through policies to create the environment for a strong economic recovery by promoting competitiveness and productivity. Economic recovery will underpin jobs growth and the availability of productive employment for young people. This strategy has been succeeding, with an increase of over 80,000 in employment over the last two years.

Reflecting the improvement in the labour market, youth unemployment continues to fall. For example the youth unemployment rate in Ireland as estimated by Eurostat was 21.6% in December 2014 as compared to 30.8% in December 2011, and under the 25% threshold which formed the basis for funding of Youth Guarantee measures under the Youth Employment Initiative. However, the Government recognises that as the recovery takes hold, there is a need for additional measures to ensure that as many as possible of the jobs created are taken up by jobseekers and young jobseekers in particular. This is the rationale behind the Government's Pathways to Work strategy and the Youth Guarantee Implementation Plan.

The Youth Guarantee sets a medium-term objective of ensuring that young people receive an offer of employment within four months of becoming unemployed. As set out in the Youth Guarantee Implementation Plan the Government intends to deliver on this objective by changing its activation process to ensure that young people benefit from earlier and more frequent engagement with case officers, by earmarking places on existing employment and training programmes for young people and by introducing some new programmes such as FirstSteps and JobPlus Youth. FirstSteps aims to offer young people you are particularly distant from the labour market a work experience opportunity with sponsor employers. In line with the Youth Guarantee commitment JobsPlus Youth offers employers who recruit a young person under 25 years of age who was unemployed for four months or more a subsidy of up to €416 per month. The duration unemployed threshold for other age cohorts is 12 months.

The Tánaiste launched FirstSteps and JobsPlus Youth on 4th February and the new process for engaging with young people in Intreo centres is currently being deployed; earmarked places on schemes such as Momentum were implemented in 2014 and the number of young people who accessed these places, including the reserved places is set out in the Table 1.

Table 1 Youth Guarantee Progress to date*

ProgrammeExpected full-year intake20142015 YTDNote
Youthreach/CTC3,3003553CTC starters end Dec -- including Youthreach 1800 persons
JobBridge (including developmental internship)5,0003138191As of end January 2015
Tús1,0001410As of 30th November 2014
JobsPlus1,50041019As of end Jan 15- U25 estimated as 14.7% of total starters in 2015 (127)
Momentum2,000631132As of 5th Feb 2015
BTEA (excl Momentum)3,3002319As of 14th October
BTWEA200139Including 5 persons on STEA
VTOS500672Estimated U25 unemployed entrants
FAS/Solas9,5008027Based on SST, Traineeship, Bridging & LTI starters YTD (end December)
CEB youth Entrepreneurship Not yet commenced
Training and Mentoring supports700
CEB/MFI micro-loans for young people1501023rd Dec 2014
International Work Experience and Training250Not yet commenced
Gateway45019230th November 2014
Community Employment50060045End January 2015
Total 28,35021,101387*Excluding where figures are not available


The official measure of unemployment is sourced from the Quarterly National Household Survey (QNHS). It provides a measure of unemployment at national and regional levels, but not at the county level.

However, the Live Register, which captures those registering for unemployment benefits (but includes those working part-time and in casual work who draw partial unemployment payments), provides an indication of trends at county level. I have, accordingly, provided in Table 2 the number of young people on the Live Register in each county as at 31stDecember 2014, with the data for 31stDecember 2011 included for comparison. The total was 47,928 in 2014 and 75,556 in 2011.

Table 2 Young people on the Live Register as at December 2014 and December 2011
Dec-11Dec-14Change Dec-11 Dec-14
State7555647928-27628
Carlow County1316893-423
Cavan County1321916-405
Clare County16311111-520
Cork County68493707-3142
Donegal County43342828-1506
Dublin County1809911304-6795
Galway County37912263-1528
Kerry County25701487-1083
Kildare County29032115-788
Kilkenny County1220751-469
Laoighis County15781151-427
Leitrim County555384-171
Limerick County35882121-1467
Longford County936591-345
Louth County31982060-1138
Mayo County23061433-873
Meath County18851187-698
Monaghan County1015652-363
North Tipperary1331936-395
Offaly County17671298-469
Roscommon County699438-261
Sligo County929607-322
South Tipperary17221130-592
Waterford County25251516-1009
Westmeath County18581280-578
Wexford County36222384-1238
Wicklow County20081385-623
Source: CSO

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