Taking Action, Creating Jobs

The first annual APJ was launched in February 2012, and its first successor was published in February 2013. Together, these comprised over 600 specific actions. It is estimated that over 90% of these actions had been completed by the end of 20133. In this context, the Irish authorities requested that the OECD prepare a preliminary review of the 2012 and 2013 APJs – a “process and policies health check” – with a view to informing future iterations of the APJ. The third APJ was published in February 2014, comprising a further 385 specific actions.

The APJ had targeted the creation of 100 000 new jobs by 2016, with the longer-term aim of restoring the number of employed people to 2 million by 2020, since revised to 2.1 million in light of publication of the Government’s Medium Term Economic Strategy 2014-2020. While the

1 All labour market figures from Central Statistics Office, Quarterly National Household Survey, seasonally adjusted. Emigration statistics from Central Statistics Office Population and Migration Estimates, 29 August 2013. 2 Central Statistics Office, Live Register figures for March 2014. 4th Quarterly APJ Progress Report of 2013, forthcoming.

Irish economy is well on track to achieve these interim goals – particularly if the current rate of job creation is maintained (60,000 increase in net employment across multiple sectors in the year to Q4 2013) – this would by 2020 still leave the number of people employed below the Q1 2008 peak. Tackling unemployment and ensuring that high cyclical unemployment does not become structural and persistent are important challenges. A relentless focus on activating those most vulnerable to alienation from the labour market will be even more important than aggregate job creation targets in this regard.

Following the completion of the EU-ECB-IMF Troika programme of financial assistance in December 2013, and Ireland’s successful return to financial markets in early 2014, it is important to maintain the momentum of the country’s reform agenda so as to retain this market confidence and, more importantly, generate the growth and jobs needed to further accelerate the decline in unemployment from its current high levels. There is a need, moreover, to ensure that successive APJs are fully aligned with both the recently published Medium-Term Economic Strategy 2014-2020 and other horizontal policy initiatives.