Written answers

Wednesday, 25 October 2017

Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation

Central Bank of Ireland Reports

Photo of Niall CollinsNiall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail)
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101. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation her views on the latest Central Bank paper, the Labour Market and Wage Growth after a Crisis, which shows around one in ten persons reported they were willing to work up to 16 hours more per week on average, suggesting a greater degree of slack in the labour market, which will act as a brake on wage growth. [45322/17]

Photo of Frances FitzgeraldFrances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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The Action Plan for Jobs is the Government’s key instrument to support job creation. The Action Plan for Jobs process is working. Since the first Plan was launched in early 2012, there are over 224,000 more people at work, bringing total employment in the State to almost 2,063,000 by end of Quarter 2, 2017.

The increase in employment has been accompanied by a decrease in unemployment from 15.2% to 6.1% in September 2017. To date, while in some sectors there has been strong wage and earnings growth, in part due to recovery the economy, productivity growth and some tightness in the labour market conditions, overall wage growth has been relatively muted.

Over this period, the overall numbers and share of those in part-time employment has reduced. Much of the recent job growth is in full-time employment, with many of those in part-time employment transitioning to full-time employment. The CSO data indicates that part-time work is increasingly a choice. As of Quarter 2 this year, four-out-of-five working part-time were doing so by choice, an increase three-out-of-four 12 months ago.

The Government target for this year is 45,000 new jobs. My Department is actively pursuing this objective through the implementation of Action Plan for Jobs 2017. I am also leading the development of the Action Plan for Jobs 2018, with the objective of securing sustainable full-employment with an additional 200,000 at work, and 135,000 of those new jobs outside Dublin, by 2020.

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