The Irish Business and Employers Confederation (IBEC) is calling for a range of tough policies on unemployment, including cutting the dole for those who refuse job offers. It also predicts that an increasing number of job vacancies may be filled by immigrant workers.

In a wide-ranging paper at the Dublin Economic Workshop in Kenmare today, IBEC economist Mr Aebhric McGibney will call for a wide range of new measures to reduce unemployment. These will also include redirecting back-to-work and employment subsidies to employers.

According to Mr McGibney, the measures are needed to prevent a further bottleneck in the labour market. He said employers are finding it difficult to fill relatively low-skilled jobs.

"In the 1980s, the administration of welfare payments was relaxed and policy in the 1990s has not changed sufficiently to reflect the fact that the opportunities for employment, for those with low skill or educational background, are considerably improved," he says.

In his paper Mr McGibney calls for:

the employment service to adopt a harder line in pushing unemployed trainees towards the "risk" of employment in the market economy;

the Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs to act immediately on the "conditionality" of unemployment payments;

payment penalty for refusals to pursue three appropriate job or trainee offers;

setting up a single central service for employers to provide detailed feedback on their recruitment experiences with welfare clients;

the Department to undertake a review of all live register recipients every six months to assess their recent job search activities;

full exchange of information between the department and the employment service;

those in receipt of unemployment payments to automatically be registered with the employment service and the appropriate Local Employment Service;

replacing the back-to-work allowance and Job Start with a single employment subsidy, directed at the employer and implemented by a single agency.

IBEC also warns that there is a danger that the numbers in community employment schemes could be contributing to the tightness in the labour market.

The confederation recommends that the schemes should be strictly targeted to help the hardest to place, and most at risk of lifelong unemployment and poverty.

Mr McGibney said that, in a pilot survey by IBEC, 41 per cent of employers said the tax and social welfare system was the most significant problem they faced when trying to recruit staff.