The OECD Report on employment paints an alarming picture of Ireland’s jobs crisis and shows that the Government’s strategy for jobs is failing dismally.

The key findings of the OECD report are that:

• Unlike other countries, axing jobs is the only option adopted by employers in Ireland. But other governments have been able to promote flexible working options to reduce the impact on unemployment;
• Not only has unemployment surged in Ireland, but people are getting stuck on welfare. Almost 40% of the unemployed now deemed to be long-term unemployed, with high risk they will never be reabsorbed into work;
• The likely economic recovery will be too feeble to address the problem of rising unemployment.

Much is being written about our fiscal problems and our banking problems, but the real crisis in Ireland is the jobs crisis. The FÁS Report on the Labour Market shows that, contrary to Government forecasts, 87,000 jobs will be lost in 2010 and a further 22,000 in 2011. The depression as far as jobs are concerned, is far from over.

Over the four year depression in the Irish economy, 370,000 jobs will have been lost. The toll of job losses is heavily concentrated on male manual workers. Over 90% of the jobs lost have hit men working the traditional production sectors of manufacturing construction and agriculture. Male unemployment rates at 16.5% are now twice the female rate.

Against this background, the OECD rightly points to the need for strong measures to help people re-skill, get work experience and develop their capacity to search for jobs. However, the Government’s feeble measures, which have put merely a few hundred workers on to work experience and job incentive schemes, is a wholly inadequate response.

The OECD highlights the way in which the existing employment services have simply become overrun by the scale of the problem that they are facing and are unable to cope. An urgent strategy for jobs must be now put on the table by Government.”