Government jobs strategy must include concrete job creation
The Government will today launch its Action Plan for Jobs 2012. In a statement ULA Finance spokersperson Richard Boyd Barrett TD said that measures must be more than token and must include real concrete jobs. Reports suggest that much of the plan will include measures in the area of job seeking, extending the jobs seeking process, internships and work experience that does not amount to real and actual jobs.
Estimates from the Department of Finance released yesterday show that low and middle income earners have been hardest hit bythe Government austerity measures while top earners are not bearing any of the brunt of the goverment’s policies.
These staggering figures more than negate any jobs initiative.
Richard Boyd Barrett TD said, "Slashing incomes and as a result, people’s ability to spend depresses demand and small and medium businesses are forced to close with loss of jobs".
"Stimulating small and medium businesses is a good measure but who is going to spend in them to keep them going if wages and social welfare continue to be cut as the Government tries to fulfill it’s obligation to the IMF and the bankers".
"With unemployment sky-rocketing as construction industry figures show today this action plan for jobs has to go beyond rhetoric and token measures with the creation of real and actual jobs and abandoning the failed policy of austerity"