Calls for focus on job creation and retention
Business groups today called for a renewed focus on job creation and retention against a backdrop of live register and redundancy figures showing a total of over 58,000 redundancies in 2010.
The Irish Small & Medium Enterprises Association (ISME) said that if proper employment policies were put in place, SMEs would be in a position to create jobs and assist in fuelling future economic growth.
At present no coherent policy exists, with companies continuing to struggle and shedding jobs in the process, the association said.
“The latest seasonally adjusted live register figures confirm that a massive 444,000 people are claiming assistance, up 13,700 on the corresponding period last year, representing an increase of 3.2%," ISME Chief Executive Mark Fielding said.
"With 58,731 redundancies being registered in 2010 it confirms that 233 jobs a day are being lost.
"The indications are that 2011 will continue to see unemployment remaining high, with the first quarter being particularly difficult, as many businesses attempting to deal with the effects of harsh trading conditions over the Christmas period, due to inclement weather, water shortages and depressed consumer spending," Mr Fielding said.
"Further reductions in income due to tax increases will only add to an already serious situation."
A recent ISME survey highlighted that one third of companies (30%), expect to shed jobs over the next 12 months. Many of these companies have identified economic uncertainty, lack of finance and the increasing costs to business as key reasons for reducing employment.
“What is urgently required is the introduction of policies to provide the confidence for businesses to start investing and creating employment," Mr Fielding added.
"We need the Government to make “Job Creation and Retention” the main focus for 2011."
Those sentiments were echoed by the Small Firms Association (SFA), who said that the continuing cost of “doing business in Ireland” for small businesses will have further consequences for the employment prospects of Irish workers.
“The 2010 job figures show that the impact of job losses has been concentrated in the lower skilled occupations," said SFA Director Avine McNally.
"Ireland appears to be experiencing a classical labour market mismatch situation, with significant skill shortages in some areas such as IT and specialist’s sales coupled with an oversupply in other occupations.
"The task the Government faces in re-skilling and retraining is daunting, but necessary, if Ireland is to avoid a long period of structural unemployment.”
Whilst small Irish businesses have taken actions to regain cost-competitiveness within their businesses, many costs remain which are outside their control as they are Government controlled.
“In the absence of reductions in these costs, small businesses will continue to have to further reduce the costs that are within their control, and this will inevitably mean a further loss of jobs," McNally added.
“The common agenda must be to promote economic growth, to adopt the right policies to ensure that growth comes with jobs, and to increase labour market efficiency to allow a better match between demand and supply," she said.
"Job creation must be at the heart of the recovery policies."
