Written answers

Tuesday, 19 July 2016

Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation

Job Retention

Photo of Richard Boyd BarrettRichard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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906. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation his plans to encourage workers to stay here, in view of emigration figures still running at 23,000 persons, per annum. [20699/16]

Photo of Mary Mitchell O'ConnorMary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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The Programme for a Partnership Government sets an ambitious target to have an additional 200,000 at work by 2020, with an unemployment rate of 6 per cent. Achieving this ambitious target is premised on the creation of a range of employment and career opportunities across a broad spectrum of skills across all sectors of the economy, including manufacturing and services activities. Supporting the creation by enterprises of sustainable and quality employment is the key focus of my Department, of the enterprise development agencies and the Local Enterprise Offices. We are determined to ensure there are employment opportunities in this country for all our people.

Enterprise 2025, the Government’s long-term enterprise policy was launched in 2015. It is an ambitious strategy, with the objective of delivering growth over the next decade that is sustainable, led by strong export performance, builds on our sectoral strengths, and that is underpinned by innovation, productivity, cost effectiveness and competitiveness.

It is our aim to build resilience into our economy so that we do not suffer again as we have done in the past. As a small open economy Ireland’s success will be dependent on driving export led growth and growing the additional indirect jobs stimulated by the activities of exporting enterprises in the wider economy. We will continuously monitor our employment growth patterns in terms of an export/non-export ‘balance’ to avoid the mistakes of the past.

The focus on job creation is a Government wide agenda. As set out in the Programme for a Partnership Government, it involves:

- achieving a leap forward in the capacity and the performance of enterprises based here/ and in attracting further investment. We will put in place an extra €500 million in capital funding to accelerate export led jobs growth across Ireland’s regions;

- focusing investments in areas where Ireland can differentiate itself internationally – specifically education and skills, creating attractive places to live and work throughout the country and supporting enterprise innovation; and

- improving the environment for business in terms and maintaining a focus on protecting our national competitiveness from unsustainable cost growth.

To deliver on this ambitious target, in the Programme for a Partnership Government we commit to maintaining the OECD endorsed Action Plan for Jobs (APJ) Process that will set out, on an annual basis, the best ideas for job creation within available resources.

Building on this process, we are focused on ensuring that we can support new job creation in every region in the country over the next five years, through the implementation of the Regional Action Plans for Jobs. A key objective of the plans is to have a further 10 to 15 per cent at work in each region by 2020.

The Expert Group on Future Skills Needs (EGFSN) reports to me and to the Minister for Education and Skills. The EGFSN plays a key role in advising the Government on the current and future skills needs of the economy. Recent EGFSN reports have anticipated future job opportunities arising from both expansion and replacement demand for a range of occupational roles. These include ICT, data analytics, manufacturing, medical devices, pharmaceuticals, food and beverages. Further opportunities are also anticipated in international sales and marketing, project management, freight transport, distribution and logistics, and in the hospitality sector.

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