A "SERIOUS mismatch" between new jobs being created and the skills available on the labour market is evident, an EU conference on local development has high.
Mr Padraig Flynn, Commissioner for Employment and Social Affairs, told the conference in Dublin yesterday that the EU was struggling with "a very difficult employment situation".
The EU employment rate is now lower than it was 20 years ago and unemployment is running at 10.7 per cent, just below the 1994 peak of 11.3 per cent. Youth unemployment and long term unemployment are both high.
Youth unemployment is currently twice the average unemployment level and the long term unemployed now constitute mores than 50 per cent of the total number of unemployed.
"The fact is that we have now a serious mismatch between the skills required by the new jobs being created and the skills available on the labour market," said Mr Flynn. "We have been slow to train, retrain and reintegrate."
Mr Flynn said there was some comfort in the fact that between 1988 and 1995 almost 260,000 jobs per year were created in small and medium sized enterprises, offsetting job losses in larger companies, and growth was predicted to accelerate in 1997.
A broad partnership approach, combined with local innovation and initiative, was now required to provide the skills base needed to take up the new jobs that are being created.
Opening the conference, the Minister of State for European Affairs and Local Development, Mr Gay Mitchell, said the cost of job creation under the Government's local development programme was three times cheaper than under any other form of state backed job creation.
The cost per job under the £348 million programme was £3,551, said Mr Mitchell, compared to, £10,000 for other forms of state backed employment. "What we are talking about is not just jobs that will last for a few years but real and sustainable employment," he told delegates.
The programme, backed by local partnerships and county enterprise boards, has a target of creating 23,000 jobs by the end of 1999. By the end of last year, 4,663 full time jobs and 1,078 part time jobs had been created. The Taoiseach, Mr Bruton, said the local development programme was an example of "how European funds can demonstrate change for the good".
But the director of the Irish Business and Employers' Confederation (IBEC) said the local development programme needed to be simplified and relieved of some of its bureaucracy.
Mr Brian Geoghegan also warned against any increase in public spending and said that those involved in the programme should be moving toward self sustaining activities before 1999. Mr Mitchell rejected the accusations of excessive bureaucracy.