Martin predicts continued growth in employment

The Minister for Enterprise Trade and Employment, Mr Martin, has told a conference in Dublin that the key to Ireland's future economic success depends on workplace training and development, responsibility for which he said, rests with the private sector with the State providing support.

He told a Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed (INOU) conference in Dublin that the "key to our future success and competitiveness will hinge upon the independent decisions which firms make about upskilling their workers . ."

He said the challenge is to find the "right enabling formula where the State contribution serves as an effective means of leveraging private sector resources to best effect." He said training and learning new skills for low-skill workers in tradional industries needed to start now.

Mr Martin was addressing a conference today on the National Employment Action Plan (NEAP), which each EU member state is required to produce each year.

While emphasising the positives of employment in Ireland, with 4.4 per cent of people out of work compared with the EU average, Mr Martin stressed the need for the existing work force to constantly update their skills.

He said "most economists now predict that employment  growth will continue with an average rate of 2 per cent up to 2010." However, the Minister said he expected many of these additional workers to come from outside the State with 300,000 people expected to come into the State over that time.

However, to mobilise as many workers as possible from within the State the Minister said a number of measures are being taken including; encouraging further training and childcare provision.

He said for the last six years the NEAP plan has worked with employed young people and adults. Mr Martin said unemployment for people under 25 years of age remains "a key concern".

As part of the NEAP people under 25 receiving unemployment benefit for more than six months are referred for interview at FAS local offices for one-to-one vocational guidance and counselling.

A spokesperson for the Department said the Government remained committed to low employment but did not state what the target unemployment was. She denied that all of the 300,000 additional workers required by 2010 would come from outside the State and said this additional worker force would be made up of a combination of people from within and outside the State.

Mr Martin also safe-guarded the future of Community Employment Schemes for long-term unemployed."Community Employment schemes were fundamentally conceived as a labour market intervention to help people get back to work. And we continually have to focus in on that aspect of it. Simply to say well certain people won't ever get back into employment . . . I don't think we can ever be that fatalistic.