Tom Fleming (Kerry South, Independent)
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167. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Social Protection the action that she is taking to address the extremely high level of youth unemployment, which in summer 2015, the Central Statistics Office reported was at a level of 20.02%, which is the current percentage of youth unemployment for over one year; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [30812/15]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, 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.

Youth unemployment continues to fall (with a rate of 22.4% in Q2 2015, as compared to 26.9% in Q2 2014). These figures are not adjusted for seasonality; the seasonally-adjusted rate as of August 2015 was 20.7%.

The number of young people who are long-term unemployed has fallen from 35,000 in mid-2012 (46% of all the young unemployed at that time) to 13,000 (31% of all the young unemployed) in mid-2015.

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 Workstrategy and the Youth Guarantee.

The Youth Guarantee sets a medium-term objective of ensuring that young people receive an offer of employment within four months of becoming unemployed.The main plank of the guarantee is assistance to young people in finding and securing sustainable jobs. For those who do not find employment, additional offers are provided for.Most such offers (over 70%) are in further education or training. Others are in community-based employment programmes such as CE, Gateway and Tús, or through the JobsPlus employment subsidy for private employment.