Download Setting the context - Dublin Employment Pact

Setting the context – the scale and nature of unemployment in Dublin
Introduction
Dublin as a whole experiences a lower unemployment rate than the national average –
3.3% as against 4.3% in the State as a whole1. As Ireland’s largest city, and the
capital, it has attracted a higher share of new jobs and has been at the heart of our
economic boom. In Dublin alone, there are now 180,000 more at work since 1993,
when unemployment began to fall from its peak.
In this positive picture, it is important to remember also the reality that Dublin has
some of the worst concentrations of unemployment, poverty and multiple
disadvantage in the country. The 1996 Census small area data shows that 40% of the
unemployment blackspots,2 or 43 out of 110 identified by the CSO, were in Dublin.
The improvements in the public finances and the shrinking scale of long-term
unemployment in Dublin now make it a feasible target to implement programmes
which reach all the long-term unemployed, and those at high risk of becoming so, in
Dublin. Given the progress of the economy, the virtual eradication of long-term
unemployment in the Dublin area should now be the goal. Two key elements need to
be ensured:

that mainstream national programmes are effective in addressing the obstacles to
ending long-term unemployment in Dublin

that successful initiatives being developed or implemented on a small scale in
communities around Dublin are taken to a scale sufficient to address need
THE ECONOMIC CONTEXT
Economic growth and falling unemployment
Following the peak in unemployment reached in 1993, Ireland's economy began a
remarkable growth performance. On the jobs market, it showed first with a dramatic
rise in the numbers at work, and subsequently with a sharp fall in the numbers of
unemployed, however measured.
Table 1.1
Unemployment and long-term unemployment, Ireland, 1993 and 2001
Principal economic status
Live Register
ILO
Unemployment rate (ILO)
Long-term unemployment (ILO)
1993
April
230,000
295,000
220,000
15.7%
8.9%
2001
April
100,000
137,000
80,000
3.7%
1.2%
April 2001
as % of 1993
43%
46%
36%
Sources: Labour Force Survey; Quarterly National Household Survey, Live Register
1
QNHS, June-August 2001
Defined by the CSO as a District Electoral Division with a labour force of over 200, and an
unemployment rate of over 30%. See p. 18-19 Census 1996 – Principal Socioeconomic Results.
2
Dublin’s economy has prospered more than the national average during the boom, and
unemployment in Dublin has fallen faster than the national average. In the eight years
from mid 1993, the number at work in Dublin grew by over 180,000. In the State as a
whole, jobs grew by about a third since 1993, but in Dublin by over 40%. For every
three new jobs, one went to reduce unemployment. Unemployment has fallen
dramatically. ILO unemployment in Dublin, the official measure, is down by about
three quarters since 1993. The number signing on has fallen by two thirds.
Table 1.2
Unemployment in Dublin 1993 and 2001
1993
2001
2001 as % of 1993
ILO basis Q1
70,000
17,000
24%
PES, Q1
77,000
30,000
39%
LR (April)
96,000
32,000
33%
LR (October)
93,000
33,000
35%
Sources: Labour Force Survey; Quarterly National Household Survey, Live Register
ILO – International Labour Office definition (based on those actively seeking work)
PES – Principal Economic Status – self-defined economic status
LR – Live Register – those signing on in social welfare offices
Behind this picture of remarkable progress, there remains a group of unemployed
people who are outside the mainstream job market, and who appear to be relatively
untouched by the economic boom.
THE SCALE OF THE TASK
Counting the long-term unemployed
Official measures of unemployment
Three main measures of unemployment are in common use
 International Labour Office (ILO) headline measure - recent active job search.
 Principal Economic Status (PES) - self-described status
 Live Register (LR) - signing on for payment or credits
Each measure gives a different count of unemployment, and of long-term
unemployment.
Long-term unemployment
This is usually defined as those out of work for a year or more. The official ILO count
shows for the Spring quarter of 2001 shows 3,600 long-term unemployed in Dublin
on the active job market. The corresponding April Live Register figure for LTU is
about three times that, at 11,500, with over a half recorded as out of work for three
years or more.
Table 1.3
Long-term unemployment in Dublin, 2001
LR April 2001
LR October 2001
ILO Mar-May 2001
Total unemployed
32,500
33,000
16,500
Over 1 year
11,500
10,500
3,600
Over 3 years
6,500
5,700
n.a.
Sources: Live register age by duration analysis; special tabulation of QNHS for Dublin
The discrepancy between the different sets of figures may be due to a number of
reasons
 the Live Register includes people who work part-time and legitimately sign on
and claim for part of the week.

some of those who sign for credits may primarily see themselves as retired or on
home duties rather than as unemployed, and may not be interested in getting work
the ILO count of active unemployed excludes a significant number of hidden
unemployed who have withdrawn from the active job market
some of those signing on may already be working in the black economy


Scale of long-term unemployment target
The primary target groups for a Dublin strategy on long-term unemployment are
(i)
(ii)
(iii)
(iv)
(v)
the long-term unemployed, as officially measured
those who view themselves as unemployed, but have given up on looking for
work
lone parents and spouses who want work but may not be counted as
unemployed because they do not qualify for social welfare unemployment
payments
people at high risk of becoming long-term unemployed. These include early
school leavers, young people with no qualifications working in intermittent or
dead-end jobs, and people who are already over six months out of work
people on state job schemes whose prospects of steady work are poor when
they finish on the programme
1. Long-term unemployed on job market – 3,600 ILO unemployed over 1 year.
(Special tabulation QNHS March- May 2001 for Dublin). This compares to 10,500
Dubliners who had been signing on for a year or more in October 2001.
2. Unemployed, not in job market – people who give their Principal Economic
Status as “unemployed” but are described as “marginally attached” or “others” on
the ILO definition – 15,300 (Special tabulation QNHS March- May 2001 for
Dublin)
The ILO definition of unemployment, which is the basis of the official headline
unemployment rate, centres on recent active job search. The people who are
counted as ILO unemployed are therefore likely to be responsive to increasing
demand in the labour market.
The Principal Economic Status definition of unemployment looks at how people
describe themselves. A high proportion of those who describe themselves as
unemployed are not included in the headline count because they are not active on
the job market. These are people who are regarded as “unemployed” on the PES
definition but as “inactive” on the ILO definition. This group formed about a
quarter of the PES unemployed throughout the 1990s, and with lower
unemployment, this share has now grown to a third. The numbers involved have
remained remarkably constant throughout the 1990s (see Appendix 1, Table 3) at
about 40-45,000 nationally. Those who are not actively looking for work are least
likely to get it, even in a buoyant job market, and these numbers have been barely
affected by the jobs boom from the mid 1990s on.
If unemployment is only defined in economic terms, i.e. those in the active job
market, a large part of the social problem of unemployment will be overlooked.
Any effective strategy to tackle unemployment needs to reach out not only to
those who are actively in the job market, but also to those who have become
detached from the mainstream job market. The EU Employment Guidelines for
20003 were amended to make it explicit that policy should reach out to the
economically inactive as well as the unemployed. While economic success has
played a major role in reducing unemployment among those who are actively
involved on the job market, we cannot rely on economic success alone however to
reach those who are detached from the mainstream job market. Most of the
unemployed who have become detached from the world of work have been out of
work for a long period, have poor levels of skill and education, have very poor
self-esteem and low motivation. These pose major obstacles to securing and
retaining steady work
Murphy and Walsh (1997) have analysed the characteristics of those in this group
– they are predominantly men, are mainly either single or with a large family,
have poor levels of education, are long-term unemployed, are more likely to live
in local authority housing and to live with other unemployed adults.
3. Lone parents and spouses seeking work, not elsewhere recorded.
(ILO unemployment among mothers would already be included in that recorded
above at 1.) New information from the recently published family composition
tables from the QNHS shows significant increases between 1997 and 2001 in the
proportion of mothers at work. The share of working mothers rose from 47% to
55%, and the total number of mothers at work rose by 37,000 in this four year
period. The number of lone parents at work rose by 19,000. There were
corresponding reductions in unemployment and in economic inactivity particularly
by mothers of teenagers.
It is difficult to assess to what extent full-time mothers might choose to work if
child care or flexible work options were available, and to what extent being a fulltime parent is by choice. A high proportion of those presenting themselves to the
Local Employment Service in 1999 were lone parents (for every five long-term
unemployed in contact with the LES, there were two lone parents), but only 4%
were married women. It seems plausible to assume that some of those who are
now full-time parents, particularly parents of older children, might take up
employment given the right circumstances. There are 94,000 full-time mothers of
schoolgoing children, of whom 14,000 are lone parents (QNHS 2001,Q3). About a
third of these are in Dublin. It does not seem excessive to assume that potentially
10% of these mothers would look for and be available for work in the right
circumstances. This would given an estimate of hidden unemployment in this
group of about 3,000 for the Dublin area.
3
Guideline 5; see Proposal for Guidelines for Member States Employment Policies 2000, p. 3
Lone parents and work
At end 2000, there were about 34,000 people in Dublin receiving lone parent
welfare payments.4 If the same proportion are at work as are nationally(Q3, 2001),
about 18,500 would be in employment. Of these about 3,200 were on CE(Oct
2001), while the annual throughput of lone parents on CE in Dublin is about 4,800
(FÁS). About 5% of lone parents are unemployed and looking for work. The
qualitative study of lone parents (Russell and Corcoran, 2000) undertaken as part
of the Review of One-parent Family Payment (Department of Social Community
and Family Affairs, 2000) suggested strong preferences by lone parents of teenage
children for morning work, where they would be free to supervise their children
after school (ibid p. 21).
4. Early school leavers.
Figures from the Department of Education for the cohort starting second level school
in 1993 show that 1,000 left school before Junior Cert., 1,500 failed to sit Junior Cert.
and about 5,200 did not remain in the school system after Junior Cert. (Some of these
may have proceeded to apprenticeships or to non-recognised schools). If all those who
leave before Junior Cert. and a third of those who leave after Junior Cert. can be
regarded as at high risk of long-term unemployment, then Dublin is producing about
3,000 early school leavers a year in the high risk category. This is a measure of flow
rather than of stock. The total number of 16 and 17 year-old early school leavers at
risk on this basis would be roughly 6,000, and this is the indicative figure used for
early school leavers at risk of long-term unemployment. There would in addition be a
proportion of young people aged over 18, currently in precarious employment, who
are at high risk of unemployment. Many of the Partnerships and Local Employment
Services see these as a critical group in need of help.
5. Short-term unemployed at risk of long-term unemployment.
Some of the short-term unemployed may go on to become long-term unemployed. An
analysis of the short –term unemployed who were contacted by FÁS under the
Employment Action Programme from 1998 to end Dec 2000 indicates that 3% of all
referred to FÁS (ie including non-attendees) were assessed as “not progression
ready”, about 6% were still receiving intensive help from FÁS, and 12% had been
referred to job schemes rather than open employment. In total this suggests that up to
20% of short-term unemployed past the EAP threshold are in a high risk category,
unlikely to return to work unaided to the open job market. Given 5,300 Dubliners
between 6 and 12 months on the Live Register in October 2001, about 1,000 may be
expected to be in this higher risk category.
6. People on job schemes with poor prospects
National figures from FÁS showing where 1999 CE participants were in 2000 shows
44% were in employment, 25% still on CE, 4% in training or education, 17%
unemployed, and 10% on home duties/other. Adjusting for those who did not return to
4
About 28,000 receiving a One Parent Family Payment, and a further 6,000 on Deserted Wives
payments.
CE, the uinemployment rate becomes 23% and reversion to home duties etc., 13%.
The stock of CE participants in Dublin in October 2001 was 7,500, with an annual
throughput of about 10,500 of whom 2,000 transferred to another CE programme. So
between a quarter and a third of CE participants can be considered at risk of
unemployment if return to home duties is considered as involuntary. In ballpark
figures about 2-2,500 of CE participants are at risk of unemployment or nonemployment. (43% of Dublin participants are lone parents who may be more likely to
return to non-employment) Similarly, a third of Job Initiative participants would be at
risk of unemployment if their position terminates, adding up to another 500 to those at
risk..
Table 1.4
Long-term unemployed and those at high risk, Dublin region
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
5
5
Long- term unemployed, on job market
Unemployed, not in job market6
Mothers/lone parents
At risk of long-term unemployment
Early school leavers
S/term unemployed at risk of ltu7
People on job schemes, poor prospects
TOTAL
Total
3,500
15,000
3,000
6,000
1,000
2,500
31,000
Source: Quarterly National Household Survey
People who give their Principal Economic Status as unemployed, but are described as “marginally
attached” or “others” on the ILO classification of unemployment; Quarterly National Household
Survey (special tabulation)
7
See Monthly Progress report, , on Employment Action Plan Table 1
6