Written answers

Thursday, 26 November 2015

Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation

Job Creation Targets

Photo of Dara CallearyDara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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93. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the potential number of projected jobs that will be created, and the number that will be created in each region, under Enterprise 2025, in each year, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42067/15]

Photo of Dara CallearyDara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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94. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation if job projections under Enterprise 2025 include employment forecasts once the transatlantic trade and investment partnership negotiations are complete; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42068/15]

Photo of Dara CallearyDara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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95. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation if jobs projections under Enterprise 2025 include targets already set out in Food Wise 2025; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42069/15]

Photo of Dara CallearyDara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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96. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the potential number of projected jobs that will be created directly and indirectly relating to exporting enterprises under Enterprise 2025, in each year, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42070/15]

Photo of Dara CallearyDara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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97. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the potential number of projected jobs that will be created in the tourism sector under Enterprise 2025, in each year, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42071/15]

Photo of Dara CallearyDara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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98. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation if he will provide in tabular form, on an annual basis, the potential number of projected Enterprise Ireland jobs that will be created directly and indirectly under Enterprise 2025; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42072/15]

Photo of Dara CallearyDara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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99. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the potential number of projected IDA Ireland jobs that will be created directly and indirectly under Enterprise 2025, in each year, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42073/15]

Photo of Richard BrutonRichard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 93 to 99, inclusive, together.

Enterprise 2025 sets out the potential to reach 2.180 million in employment and an overall unemployment rate of 6 percent by 2020. This is based on the premise of export led growth and the additional indirect jobs stimulated by the activities of exporting enterprises in the wider economy.

The ambition is predicated on taking the actions set out in Enterprise 2025 which are focused on supporting the productive sector, enhancing our relative competitiveness, leveraging existing comparative advantage in key sectors, addressing structural issues in the economy, improving productivity and the capacity of enterprises to innovate. Enterprise 2025 is a whole of enterprise strategy that leverages the potential across all sectors of the economy in manufacturing and services activities, both exporting and domestically oriented. The Government's efforts will be on achieving a step change in enterprise performance across the whole enterprise base.

Our enterprise development agencies will contribute significantly to achieving the ambition for employment creation set out in Enterprise 2025 (Table 1). Annualised targets have not been set out in the Strategy. The enterprise agencies will each set annual targets in the context of the overall ambition.

Table 1 Enterprise 2025 Employment Ambition

2014 (base year)2020Net change (after rounding)Annual average 2015-2020 inclusive
IDA Ireland175,000216,00042,0007,000
Enterprise Ireland180,000212,00032,0005,300
Indirect Jobs linked to the above--65,00010,833
Overall Ambition (Total Economy)1,914,0002,180,000266,00044,333

IDA Ireland and Enterprise Ireland

IDA Ireland's strategy 2015-2019 targets the delivery of an additional 35,000 net jobs by 2019 which aligns with the Government's FDI Policy Statement. Extrapolated to 2020, the target contribution made by FDI will be 42,000 direct jobs or an average of circa 7,000 net new jobs on an annual basis over the period to 2020. The agency has targeted 14,000 gross job approvals for 2015, yielding a net increase in jobs approved of 7,000 for the year in the context of 160 new FDI investment projects approved.

Enterprise Ireland's strategy 2014-2016 targets the delivery of an additional 40,000 gross jobs over the period of the strategy. In the context of Enterprise 2025, the net jobs potential from Enterprise Ireland supported companies over the period to 2020 is 32,000.

Indirect jobs

It is anticipated that over the period to 2020, an additional 65,000 jobs will be stimulated in the wider economy indirectly, as a result of jobs created by Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland client companies. The total contribution to the potential private sector employment growth on foot of IDA and EI client company activity will be circa 140,000 jobs.

Tourism

The Government's tourism strategy, People, Place and Policy: Growing Tourism to 2025 includes an overall target of 50,000 additional jobs in the sector by 2025. In the context of Enterprise 2025, the overall interpolated employment potential for the sector over the period to 2020 is an additional 30,000 jobs.

Regional employment

Enterprise 2025 does not set out the break-down of the overall job creation targets for the regions. A clearly stated ambition for the strategy is that by 2020, the overall unemployment rate in each of the regions will not be higher than 1 percentage point than the national unemployment rate.

The roll out of the Action Plan for Jobs at a regional level is being progressed by my Department and will drive delivery of the ambition set out in Enterprise 2025. To date, five (out of a total of eight) Regional Jobs Plans have been launched (Midlands, South-East, South-West, Mid-West, West) as part of a €250 million regional jobs strategy. Each of these Plans set out employment growth targets along with detailed actions to be undertaken on an annual basis. The Plans reflect a potential uplift in employment in the region of 10 to 15 percent overall in the period to 2020 consistent with the overall employment targets in Enterprise 2025 (over a 2014 base). The levels of employment growth actually achieved within that range will depend on factors including the level of support and collaboration within the local community for the Plan, and the level of collaboration between organisations in the region and the main Government bodies involved in the plans.

As part of its growth strategy, IDA has committed itself to increasing the level of investment into each region of Ireland by between 30% and 40%.

Employment Forecasts relating to TTIP

The agreement of a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership has the potential to have an additional positive impact on job creation in Ireland, dependent on the final shape of such an agreement. According to assessments made by the EU Commission, a comprehensive EU-US trade agreement could over time boost EU GDP by 0.5% bringing significant economic gains as a whole for the EU. This converts into 400,000 jobs across the EU. An independent study commissioned by my Department, carried out by Copenhagen Economics, estimates that these benefits in Ireland will be proportionally greater than in the EU as a whole. The report suggests a boost to GDP of 1.1%, growth in Irish exports of almost 4%, increases in investment of 1.5%, and an increase in real wages of 1.5% and estimates somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 additional export related jobs for Ireland.

The Copenhagen Economics assessment also suggests that Irish SMEs will be particular beneficiaries. Many of these are part of European supply chains where their exports, feed into Europe's exports to the U.S. In these negotiations, Ireland will seek to have opportunities created in the agreement where we have clear strengths, and we will seek to defend our interests where we have sensitivities.

As an economy that lives and grows by the freedom to trade, we have first-hand experience of how trade liberalisation has continually shaped and reshaped our economy. We have used openness to trade in the past, and will continue to use it, as an instrument for structural reform, modernisation and development, creating new opportunities for innovation and stronger productivity growth with higher skilled jobs throughout the economy.

Food Wise 2025

The successful implementation of Food Wise 2025 will have a direct bearing on realising the overall ambition for employment set out in Enterprise 2025, through the activities of exporting indigenous and foreign owned food enterprises, locally trading food enterprises, as well as the broader non-agency supported agri-food activities related to primary production. In addition to working with indigenous exporting and potential exporters in the food sector, Enterprise Ireland also has responsibility for the attraction of FDI in food and for working with foreign owned food entities as they develop their activities in Ireland. All of these activities are factored into the employment projections to 2020 set out in Enterprise 2025.

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