THE GOVERNMENT IS aiming create an extra 40,000 jobs and bring unemployment below 10 per cent this year following a special cabinet meeting on jobs this morning.
The coalition has now revised its target of achieving full employment, where around 2.1 million people are in work, by 2020 and said this could now be reached by 2018.
Speaking at a press conference in Government Buildings today, the Taoiseach Enda Kenny said that 40,000 is a realistic figure but that he’d be happy if it were exceeded.
He said the coalition would “strive might and main to actually achieve that”.
But he added: “I don’t see this as a statistic.
These are men and women who are going to have the opportunity to go to work and that means getting on the employment ladder, being able to buy the car, the boyfriend, the girlfriend, buy the boots or whatever. Live a life, as it were.
“So it’s the excitement of that and that’s the challenge of politics now, to make it actually become realistic so that we can see these spread throughout the country, from Buncrana right down to all over the place.
“So that’s the hope and we expect government to really drive very strongly at this and I think it’s an eminently achievable and realistic target.”
Tánaiste Joan Burton said that there are now an extra 84,000 people at work in Ireland compared to when unemployment was its highest.
She said that the government’s youth guarantee initiative would be fully operational this year and that funding for JobsPlus, where employers are paid to take on someone who is long-term unemployed, would have its funding increased.
First published 2.40pm
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