Govt Publishes Action Plan For Jobs 2014

The Government has published its latest Action Plan for Jobs, the third installment in their plan aimed at building a sustainable growing economy and creating jobs.

Launching the Plan, Taoiseach Enda Kenny said: "Creating new jobs is the top priority for Government. We recognise that too many people around the country still have yet to see evidence of recovery. This is why the Government has designated 2014 to be the year for jobs."

The 2014 plan includes 10 key measures, which are:

1. Entrepreneurship – A county-based public competition to find the best entrepreneur in Ireland with €2m in funding for awards; an Entrepreneurial PhD programme to train SFI scientists to launch their own businesses; 31 new Local Enterprise Offices to drive start-ups across the country and a review of tax supports for entrepreneurs to see if they can be improved or simplified

2. FDI – 10,000 additional jobs to be created through recruitment of extra staff for IDA Ireland overseas, additional jobs over and above existing strategies to be created in multinational companies in Ireland within 5 years; IDA to focus on new areas of growth including the 'internet of things'

3. Manufacturing – As part of a plan to create 40,000 additional manufacturing jobs by 2020, a programme of new measures to support productivity improvements and higher levels of R&D in Irish and multinational manufacturing businesses

4. Agencies – IDA, Enterprise Ireland and the new Local Enterprise Offices will together support a total of 30,500 direct new jobs during 2014. Enterprise Ireland clients to target €17.5billion in exports in 2014

5. Competitiveness – Ireland's competitiveness has improved steadily since the Action Plan for Jobs process was first launched, going from 24th in the IMD world competitiveness rankings in 2011 to 20th in 2012 and 17th in 2013 – measures to continue this drive include a new system of quarterly reporting to Cabinet Committee on competitiveness issues and action on areas affecting business; measures on skills including 6000 Momentum places; reduced costs for businesses through rollout of the reformed Workplace Relations structures

6. Access to Finance – New non-bank sources of lending to SMEs to add to the €2bn already available including new working capital products for exporters and a retail mini bonds market via the Irish Stock Exchange; Dept of Finance will more closely monitor new bank lending to SMEs on a monthly basis

7. Regions – Regional Enterprise Strategies, proposals for a successor to the National Spatial Strategy, an IDA programme of building advance facilities in specific locations where the private sector is not providing property solutions

8. Sectors – New supports for to deliver continued jobs growth in sectors such as Agriculture/Food, ICT and Tourism which have been supported in previous Plans and have shown substantial growth in jobs; new focus on domestically-traded sectors also including retail and construction

9. Year of Irish Design 2015 – As part of a plan to target 1800 additional jobs in the design and crafts sector in the medium term, the Government today announced that it will designate 2015 the Year of Irish Design. Planning will take place throughout 2014 for a national and international programme of activities will take place during 2015 in order to encourage more investment in design and to sustain and grow employment opportunities, sales and export potential in the design sector

10. Disruptive reforms – A total of 9 Disruptive Reforms (high-impact measures implemented to ambitious timelines in partnership with industry – further detail in Notes for Editors), further measures following on from 2013 plan in key areas of ICT skills, Big Data, delivering an integrated licensing system for retailers and the National Health Innovation Hub.

"As we said two years ago when we published the first Action Plan for Jobs, there is no 'big bang' solution to the employment crisis," Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Richard Bruton said, before adding: "What we need is to systematically, brick-by-brick, build a sustainable growing economy which can create the jobs we need."

(MH/JP)