Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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95. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation out of the total number of jobs created in the past four years, the proportion of those in manufacturing; and in the service sectors; the extent to which this country remains competitive in both sectors; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18893/15]

Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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The Action Plan for Jobs is having a positive impact on employment in the economy, since the first Plan was launched in early 2012. The services sector is making the largest contribution to the achievement of the Government’s target of 100,000 more at work by 2016. Following a number of years of decline in employment from 2007, I am pleased to report that the manufacturing sector has also recorded increases in job numbers since 2011.

According to the CSO Quarterly National Household Survey, as of the fourth quarter of 2014, seasonally adjusted, the number of people at work in industry and services increased by 73,400, and there are 13,400 more people at work in construction, since the launch of the Action Plan for Jobs in 2012.

In relation to agency assisted firms, the net increase in full-time employment since the launch of the Action Plan for Jobs to 2014 is 25,665, of which there a was a net increase of 8,051 in manufacturing employment and a net increase of 17,614 in internationally traded services employment. This equates to just under one-third, or 31 per cent, of the net increase in full-time employment in agency assisted firms was in manufacturing and two-thirds of the net increase was in internationally traded services enterprises, since the launch of the Action Plan for Jobs.

Arising from the strategy for the manufacturing sector ‘Making it in Ireland: Manufacturing 2020’, prepared by Forfás and the report of the Expert Group on Future Skills Needs Skills Report on the skills needs for the sector, both of which I launched in 2013, there are now a range of initiatives in hand by my Department and relevant Agencies to drive the Government’s jobs targets.

Manufacturing was a Disruptive Reform in the Action Plan for Jobs 2014, with a range of measures designed to support industry growth including encouraging entrepreneurship, further improving our skills base, improving access to finance by SMEs and supporting indigenous companies and foreign-owned manufacturing companies to transform their businesses as part of a National Step Change Initiative. The Manufacturing Development Forum is helping to address the key issues arising from the Strategy recommendations. These initiatives are important to growing and sustaining the competitiveness of existing enterprises, to sustaining employment and to attracting new investment.

More broadly in terms of our competitiveness for manufacturing and services investment, as reminded recently by the National Competitiveness Council when they published the 2015 Cost of Doing Business Report, while we have made progress in improving our comparative position, there is still further progress required. Costs in Ireland have fallen across a range of business inputs since 2009, making Ireland more competitive internationally. This is reflected in our ongoing ability to successfully compete internationally for trade and investment and in our improving performance across a range of international competitiveness benchmarking reports – for example, we have moved from 24th to 15th in the IMD’s World Competitiveness Yearbook.

In the longer term, improving our productivity performance must be the vehicle through which we must improve our competitiveness and grow the economy. Relentlessly pursuing productivity growth, driven by investment in talent and innovation, and improving our cost competitiveness remain vital to us as a small, export oriented economy so as to grow jobs and incomes in a sustainable way over the medium and longer term.