Written answers

Wednesday, 9 September 2020

Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection

Flexible Work Practices

Photo of Gerald NashGerald Nash (Louth, Labour)
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198. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if she has undertaken an analysis of whether a German-style short-time working scheme based on the kurzarbeit model could be applied in an Irish context; if he will provide costings for April 2020 to the end of 2021 if such a scheme were to be introduced from 1 April 2020 and based on current departmental economic and labour market assumptions; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [22945/20]

Photo of Heather HumphreysHeather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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My Department’s main social welfare supports (excluding the pandemic unemployment payment) for people who are unemployed are the Jobseeker’s Benefit and the Jobseekers Allowance schemes which provide income support for people who have lost work and are unable to find alternative full time employment. The 2020 revised Estimates for my Department provide for expenditure this year on the jobseeker’s schemes of €4.15 billion.

Both jobseekers schemes are based on a day of employment or unemployment as the case may be. A person can work up to 3 days per week but they must be unemployed for 4 in 7 consecutive days. Jobseeker's Benefit is a social insurance scheme paid for 9 months (234 days) for people with 260 or more PRSI contributions paid and for 6 months (156 days) for people with fewer than 260 PRSI contributions paid. Jobseeker's allowance is a means tested social assistance scheme.

Short-time work arrangements in Ireland operate under the Systematic Short-Time (SST) programme, as part of the Jobseeker’s Benefit /Jobseekers Allowance schemes. The programme is designed for use in situations where an employee’s working hours are reduced by their employer on a temporary basis. This presents an opportunity for employers to retain skilled labour, in a reduced capacity, thus avoiding the need to recruit once the economic situation improves.

In a period where we expect demand to recover in many sectors but still remain lower than it was immediately before the pandemic there is scope for a short-time work support scheme to help employers re-hire staff that were temporarily laid-off rather than to make them redundant.

In the July Stimulus package, I secured an additional €100 million in funding for a significant ramping up in the delivery of employment services to workers. As part of this initiative, my Department will work with the Department of Finance to develop and implement a new short-time working scheme, using the wage subsidy model, and taking into account international practice (including the scheme referenced by the Deputy), to support job retention and help workers and employers in situations where demand for a firm’s services or products is reduced for an extended period of time. In the meantime, the existing Employer Wage Subsidy Scheme and Short-time Work Support schemes will continue to operate. Any proposed changes or expansions to the existing scheme(s) would need to be considered in the overall policy and budgetary context.

I trust that this clarifies the position at this time.

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