Chamber policy chief joins job creation agency

Unemployment in the southwest has more than halved in the past four years, said Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Mary Mitchell O’Connor, who welcomed the appointment of a new programme manager to head up a regional action plan for jobs.

Local authorities have named former Cork Chamber of Commerce head of policy Alma Murnane to the post.

The Minister said the regional unemployment rate had dropped from 14.3 per cent in 2012 to 6.4 per cent in the third quarter of this year.

“I’m confident that under Alma’s leadership, this momentum of job creation announcements will continue and the enterprise agencies, Local Authorities and other Government bodies will continue to work collaboratively to create the right environment for jobs growth,” the Minister said.

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Ms Murnane said that she was looking forward to the challenge of driving jobs growth in the southwest in an initiative supported by funding by local authorities in Cork and Kerry.

Bob Savage, Dell EMC’s general manager for EMEA Centres of Excellence and chairman of the South West Action Plan for Jobs Implementation Committee said Ms Murnane’s experience in policy formation with Cork Chamber would enable her to contribute strongly to job creation in the area.

“There are no limits to what a precious mix of public and private sector stakeholders working together can successfully achieve,” he said, “continually building on our credentials as the region with the second highest Gross Value Added per worker in the State after Dublin.”

The South West Action Plan for Jobs was launched in July 2015 and aims to deliver 40,000 extra jobs in Cork and Kerry by 2020.