Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)
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557. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation her views on the labour force participation rates and in particular the female labour force participation rate in comparison with other EU countries and the EU average. [36920/18]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The latest Labour Force Survey release from the CSO for Q2 2018 has shown that participation rates are increasing across the labour force. When comparing year-on-year data, our overall participation rate has increased by 0.5 percent to 62.3 percent. The male participation rate has shown a slight increase (0.1 percent) to bring total male participation to 68.6 percent. The female participation rate has increased by 0.8 percent to bring the total to 56.4 percent. This level of female participation is the highest rate that has been recorded in Ireland since Q3 2009.

In order to make accurate EU comparisons, data is taken from Eurostat’s EU Labour Force Survey as published for 2017. This data shows that female participation in Ireland in 2017 was 55.7 percent. This is significantly higher than the 2017 EU average of 51.8 percent. This data identifies Sweden as the country with the highest female participation rate (62.1 percent) in Europe and Italy as the country with the lowest female participation rate (40.9 percent).

My Department recognises the importance of enhancing female participation rates in the labour market. Increasing female participation in the labour market provides us with the potential to both deliver significant social and gender equality benefits, and to address the growing need for skills and talent. With this in mind, the Action Plan for Jobs 2018 has a dedicated action aimed at facilitating female participation in employment. Action 28 aims to identify relevant policy issues for cohorts with low participation rates based on analysis of patterns of labour market participation. My Department is leading on this action and work is currently underway. It is expected that this study will be completed by the end of this year.