OPINION:FOR THE past year, we have been approaching the unemployment crisis as if it was just a body count instead of addressing the issue of getting more people engaged and contributing rather than feeling left to fend for themselves.

Members of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), with their extensive human resource and personnel experience, are able and willing to respond to our unemployment crisis.

Many better-paid people have been shocked to find the pay-related social insurance “dole money” bears very little relation to their previous earnings. It is capped at €204 a week for a single person.

The number on the Live Register has doubled to 325,000 since the autumn of 2007 and the prospects are that the numbers of long-term unemployed will more than double by next year. Official responses have sometimes been slow to meet the need for many more welfare officials and employment advisers, while the fiscal strain of increased welfare payments, medical cards and rent/mortgage supports places further stress on public finances.

Those who retain their jobs, especially in management roles, can also do more to ensure that the newly unemployed do not sink into long-term inactivity. Studies by the National Economic and Social Forum have confirmed that people without employment for more than one year experienced added difficulties in securing work even in the seven years to 2007.

The difference between the 1980s experience and now is that there are fewer emigration options and a larger proportion of those without jobs are in the graduate or professional categories. Fás is forecasting up to 70,000 people with third-level or postgraduate qualifications will be on the Live Register by Christmas.

Many companies have been involved in restructuring over the past year, ranging from managing closures to negotiating voluntary redundancy schemes, pay-freezes or redeployment. CIPD members now feel that human resource managers can do more to assist many of those who are either well-qualified or have extensive experience to undertake new roles.

More of the €2.8 billion allocated under the National Development Plan subprogramme for upskilling the workforce and the €4.9 billion for labour market activation among the unemployed should now be used for building new “jobnet” networks through which unemployed people can undertake useful roles. Each six-month assignment would be structured and supervised by a designated human resource manager.

An individual’s successful participation would be accredited by our institute as part of the person’s career and skills development and we would provide quality assurance in accordance with our practice code. Individual supervision and career support could tie in with new employment networks.

The 35 city and county enterprise boards already operate similar successful networks for micro-businesses and new entrepreneurs. CIPD-initiated jobnets could work closely with the enterprise boards which would reinforce a bridge between unemployment and enterprise initiatives.

It would also complement the work of Fás and employment services which focus on the provision of services to those most disadvantaged in the labour market. The concept is to help ensure newly unemployed do not slip in to long-term joblessness and reduce their participation chances from 2010 onwards.

Sadly we missed our opportunity to develop a form of the Dutch and Danish systems of “flexicurity” to combine flexible hire-and-fire employment legislation with high rates of social welfare and compulsory retraining. Instead, we need to adopt imaginative initiatives and the chartered members and fellows of the CIPD have indicated their willingness to play a part.

Michael McDonnell is director of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development in Ireland