A three-year plan to be published today by Co Leitrim Partnership will focus on disadvantaged groups, including the long-term unemployed.
Numbers receiving unemployment payments in the county dropped by 25 per cent between 1995 and 2000, but the county still has a very high rate of welfare dependency, with one in five adults and their families relying on such payments.
The Minister of State with responsibility for Local Development, Mr Eoin Ryan, who will unveil the action plan in Drumshanbo, said that despite the very low unemployment rates in the State, a lot of work needed to be done to bring long-term unemployed people back into the labour market.
"If people have very low self-esteem and have been unemployed for a long time, it is a lot more difficult than people might think for them to get back into the workplace," he said.
Reports from various back-to-work schemes had indicated it now takes longer to prepare a person for the workplace than it did some years ago. "But these people can be helped and their self-confidence can be built up again," Mr Ryan said.
The Leitrim Partnership has had considerable success in helping unemployed people to start their own businesses. Since 1996, 232 people started their own businesses through a back-to-work enterprise allowance scheme.
It is now providing employment for an additional 70 people. A total of just under 2,000 were helped by the partnership in that time.
The target groups in the new plan include the unemployed or underemployed, youth, smallholders, people with disabilities and their carers, older people and travellers.
The partnership has received a budget of £1.89 million for the next three years.
Mr Donal Fox from the partnership said the emphasis would be on helping people to create their own jobs through enterprise training.
There will be support for those taking part in training and education and special initiatives for Travellers, disadvantaged women, people with disabilities and small farmers.