Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The Covid-19 crisis continues to have a significant impact on the labour market.  The CSO estimates an unemployment rate of 22.5% in June 2020, when adjusted to include claimants of the Pandemic Unemployment Payment.

Even though the situation is improving, 800,000 of our workers, friends and family remain unemployed and rely on some form of State income support to make ends meet; traditional jobseeker support payments, the Covid-19 Pandemic Unemployment Support (PUP) and the Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme (TWSS). 

People who lose their jobs and remain unemployed for some time can become disconnected from the labour market.  They lose the vital social and work connections that are needed to identify and pursue work opportunities, they find that their past work experience and skills can’t easily translate into new sectors of employment.  They find employers tend to favour people with recent work experience over those with an employment gap in their CV.  We have a responsibility to help them overcome these barriers and to do so we need to invest in our employment, training and education services.

I am focussed on giving people the best chance to refind their footing in the labour market and access new employment opportunities.  I welcome the publication of the July Jobs Stimulus Package which includes a number of measures that strengthen our efforts to provide strong income supports to jobseekers while they look for work and access to professional employment and retraining services to compete in the labour market.

Changes made to the State’s employment and training services infrastructure, implemented in response to the Financial Crisis, position Ireland to respond favourably to the economic challenges that face us today.  Nevertheless, given the unprecedented scale of job losses, I have secured an additional €112m in funding for a significant ramping up in the delivery of employment services to workers, which will include 45,500 new places on schemes and services. 

This funding will be used to:

- Expand the paid Work Placement Programme - currently known as the Youth Employment Support Scheme - to extend the duration of the scheme and to increase the number of places and make them available not just to young people but to all workers who remain unemployed.

- Increase the number of employment services resources for the Intreo service to ensure that all  unemployed jobseekers have access to a an employment advisor/case officer.

- Improve and extend the recruitment subsidy for employers who hire people from the Live Register – the subsidy will be payable when employers recruit people from PUP with special provision for the early recruitment of people aged under 30 (currently this provision is limited to people aged under 25).

- Extend the training grants scheme to increase the maximum grant payable to jobseekers to fund participation in a job-relevant short training course from €500 to €1,000.

- Extend access to the Back to Work Enterprise Allowance Scheme, the Back to Education Allowance scheme and the Back to Work Family Dividend Scheme to people on PUP.

-Increase the number of places on State Employment Schemes such as Community Employment and Tús to act as a temporary bridge to provide occupational activity and employment experience to people during the recovery period.

These measures are intended to provide an inclusive pathway back to employment, ensuring that no one is left behind in the recovery phase.