Pillar 2: Helping People Back into Work

The scale of the unemployment challenge will require a determined and relentless focus on helping people back to work, training or education.

Our ambition is to have 2.5 million people in work by 2024, exceeding pre-pandemic levels. While many people will be able to return to their jobs as the economy reopens, many others will need help to secure new job opportunities aligned to a greener and more digital economy.

The government’s labour market approach is about providing opportunities to reskill and upskill, minimising long-term unemployment, and supporting individuals to secure sustainable and quality employment.

Helping people back to work will be achieved through a combination of extending existing labour market supports, increased activation capacity through Pathways to Work 2021-2025, and substantially accelerated training and skills opportunities.

The government has committed to the extension and gradual easing of labour market and enterprise supports to best support an employment intensive recovery:

• Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme: The Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme will be extended beyond 30 June until 31 December 2021. Current enhanced payment rates will be maintained for Quarter 3 (July, August, September) at current turnover thresholds. To benefit more firms, the time period for assessment will be broadened from the current 6 month period of assessment to a full 12 month period. In addition, for Quarter 4, the question of an employer contribution to employee wages under the scheme will be considered
• Pandemic Unemployment Payment: The Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) will be extended in full for existing claimants beyond 30 June to 7 September. The scheme will close to new applicants from 1 July in recognition that, at that stage, there should be no new job lay-offs that are directly attributable to public health restrictions
• the current weekly rates of support will be gradually reduced over three phases by €50 increments. The first phase of rate changes will apply from 7 September provided progress on reopening continues. Two further phases of changes will take place over the following months, on 16 November and 8 February, if progress continues as expected
• PUP claims for students will be extended until the start of the 2021/2022 college year (final payment on 7 September). In addition, €10 million in assistance will provide supports for the forthcoming academic year for students impacted by COVID-19
• throughout this period Jobseekers’ and other relevant social welfare income supports will continue to be available, on standard terms, to those who qualify and any person for whom these payments would prove more beneficial than the recalibrated PUP payment will be entitled to receive the more beneficial payment
• in addition to these measures the enhanced COVID-19 illness payment will remain available and the special arrangements put in place to provide enhanced access to rent supplement, including for victims of domestic abuse, will remain in place at least until the end of the year. The special Enterprise Support Grant of €1,000 for self-employed people returning to work will also be continued to assist self-employed sole traders, leaving PUP, to meet restart costs

Pathways to Work 2021-2025 will help unemployed people get back into employment through intense activation, upskilling and reskilling opportunities, and engaging with employers. It will have an overall target of over 100,000 additional caseloads per year, reducing the risk of labour market scarring and long-term unemployment.

There will be a particular focus on youth unemployment and working intensively with young people at greater risk of long-term unemployment, in recognition of the disproportionate effect of the pandemic on young people. As part of a new Government Youth Employment Charter, a new ambitious EU Reinforced Youth Guarantee process will see intensive engagement with young jobseekers, and an expanded Jobs Plus scheme, with 8,000 places overall, will continue to provide a higher incentive for the recruitment of young unemployed people.

The mid-term review of the Strategy will provide an opportunity to reduce barriers to the labour market, particularly for people with disabilities and lone parents.

Reskilling and upskilling is a central piece in addressing the employment transition, and through additional capacity, and flexibility and agility this challenge will be met. Accelerating the rollout of the additional 50,000 education and training places will be key, and will build on strong progress in this area.

This is being further enhanced through funding under Ireland’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan, with €181 million supporting a new Work Placement Experience Programme targeted at reaching 10,000 participants, SOLAS’s Recovery Skills Response Programme, and further support for the Technological Universities Transformation Fund.

Looking ahead, a further education model centred on apprenticeships, transferrable skills and lifelong learning is required to keep pace with future change. Ireland’s Skills Framework and architecture will be reinvigorated to minimise skills mismatches and ensure our skills approach is routed in the digital and green transition, and broader areas of opportunity and growth.

Lifelong pathways between and within Further Education and Training and High Education will advance lifelong leaning rates. The new Action Plan for Apprenticeship 2021-2025 will grow new apprentice registration to 10,000 per annum by 2025.