The rise in the number out of work, as reflected in the June live register figures, will not have come as a surprise to the Coalition Government. The downturn in the world economy made it inevitable that jobs would be lost. But the speed with which redundancies have occurred gives cause for concern.
Figures published yesterday by the Central Statistics Office show the biggest monthly rise in 16 years, with unemployment going up by more than 11,000 to just over 177,000. Increases are reported in all regions, with the worst-affected areas being the midlands and the mid-west. The past week alone has seen 500 jobs lost.
The figures pose a challenge to State agencies such as IDA Ireland, which created 11,740 jobs last year. To reduce the Republic's vulnerability to outside competition it has focused on attracting "higher-value" rather than low-skilled jobs. But this has a downside in that the companies sought tend to choose urban locations rather than rural ones, thereby undermining the IDA's other stated goal of achieving balanced regional development.
Responsibility for jobs doesn't end there, however. All stakeholders in society have a role to play in ensuring that conditions for employment growth remain in, or return to, good health. Calling for jobs to be placed at the centre of the economic and social agenda, the employers group IBEC is proposing a ten-point plan aimed at stemming the losses.
Recommendations such as banning future public service charges and improving infrastructure will receive broad support from other social partners; further proposals, like linking public-sector benchmarking awards to greater flexibility and change, perhaps not. It is clear, however, that there is enough common ground between the social partners for a pro-jobs agenda to move forward. This should be centred on tackling inflation, which even the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed recognised this week as the main threat to jobs - along with the "ever-increasing" cost of insurance.
As for the Government, the charge that it "squandered the boom" is looking ever more credible. Ministers who were happy to hog the limelight as jobs were announced must now stand up and be counted as the redundancies rise. Cutbacks in training initiatives like the Community Employment Scheme now seem recklessly premature.
Whether imprudent or not with the State's finances, the Coalition now finds itself having to make decisions contrary to the economy's interests, like imposing an employment embargo in the public sector just when investment is needed. It has, in other words, given itself little room for manoeuvre. But it must act, and decisively so, if it is not going to stand accused of exacerbating both the upturn and downturn of the present economic cycle.
The electorate may not have its say for some time. But for a Government to cut taxes in a boom and jobs in a recession would be mismanagement on an unparalleled scale.