Sir, – Dan O’Brien, Economics Editor (Finance, December 13th), is right to highlight the remarkable decline in the number in employment in the third quarter of 2011. The decrease of 20,500 is proportionally unprecedented in the 34 OECD countries. Of these, 16,200 are full-time jobs.
Clearly the Government “job creation initiative” launched in June is totally ineffective. The continuation of the austerity policy of the previous government by the Labour/Fine Gael Government has destroyed 20,500 more jobs than were created. There are now 347,000 jobs less in existence than at the peak in 2007. Austerity has failed. Current Government policy has failed.
As the investment strike in the private sector continues, it is increasingly clear that a multi-billion State job creation programme is necessary as part of the solution to the current crisis. – Yours, etc,