Unemployment described as a 'national crisis'

The loss of 27,000 jobs in the construction sector over the past year is directly due to the policies promoted by Taoiseach Brian Cowen in his former role as minister for finance, it was claimed today.

New figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) released this morning reveal that unemployment rose to a ten-year high of 7 per cent at the end of August as the number of people at work in the State showed the first annual decline since 1991.

At the end of August there were 160,600 people out of work and the number of unemployed has risen by almost 50 per cent or 53,300 over the last 12 months.

Labour Party leader Eamon Gilmore said the latest figures indicated the seriousness of the jobs crisis facing the country.

He claimed the Government had miscalculated by promoting the construction sector at the expense of other, more productive sectors of the economy.

"As the unemployment situation goes from bad to worse the Government dithers and seems incapable of taking the action needed to reverse the disastrous level of job losses. Neither the Budget nor the Finance Bill contained any significant measure to help create additional jobs, particularly in the short term," said Mr Gilmore.

"The Government has to recognise that the unemployment situation is now a national crisis. Emergency action is needed, in particular, to assist small and medium-sized companies, if we are not see further massive job losses between now and Christmas," he added.

Fine Gael also criticised the Government over its handling of the economy, saying the CSO data confirms that the bottom is falling out of the Irish private sector employment market.

"The dramatic rise in unemployment to 7 per cent in the third quarter of this year was much higher than any analyst had anticipated. Even as the shake-out in construction continues, the destruction of employment has now been extended to every business sector," said the party's enterprise spokesman Leo Varadkar.

"This is now an economic crisis of unprecedented proportions. It is time for new leadership and a new economic strategy. This must include immediate measures to counteract the recession by clamping down on
regulation and freezing Government charges and utility costs. And there is an urgent need for new retraining measures for the thousands of people losing their jobs every month," he added.