[ad_1]
The government is ready to examine a range of new supports for the labor market, as pandemic unemployment payments and temporary subsidy schemes begin to decline. Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe has indicated that the Government will extend these two supports in some way beyond their current end date of late June, but Ministers have said they cannot continue in their current form for the long term.
Encouraging employers to take people out of the pandemic and bring them to their books will be a key objective. It is expected that an extension of a current short-term work scheme will be considered as part of this. Currently designed to support employees doing short-term jobs, it can be refocused to apply when an employer hires someone from the Live Registry or pandemic pay plan initially part-time. This acknowledges that in some cases, as the economy restarts, the company may initially be unable to pay full-time wages, meaning the employee would receive additional state payments over a period.
The short-term plan is an area that is being examined by the Labor Market Advisory Council, a new body established before the election by the Minister of Employment and Social Protection Affairs, Regina Doherty. It is made up of experts in the labor market and representatives of employees and employers and is chaired by former OECD executive John Martin.
The wage subsidy scheme, which generally pays up to 70 percent of affected employees’ wages up to certain limits, is likely to be gradually reduced over a period of time. One might consider letting it apply longer in some sectors. As the pandemic unemployment payment falls over a period, the hope is that companies will re-employ many of the people who were laid off.
tourism
However, this will not be possible in sectors such as tourism in the short term and sectoral support will be a key issue to consider, which will probably fall to the next government. A key question will be how to target supports to companies that have a long-term chance of survival. Several recent studies have shown that younger employees, many of them fresh out of education, have been among the most affected and are likely to be considered special supports for this group in areas such as training, internships, and active assistance from state agencies. .
Donohoe confirmed on Friday that the government will establish a path to deal with the completion of the € 350 pandemic unemployment payment in the coming weeks.
At an online conference held by the accounting firm PwC, the Minister said that the State would have to “chart the way for how we will deal with the issue fairly and affordably” over the next “number of weeks.”
He noted that “only at the beginning of this week we made more changes with the wage subsidy scheme and we need to put them to bed.”
Mr. Donohoe was answering questions about whether the € 350 payment was, in some cases, a disincentive to work.
In a lengthy discussion moderated by PwC managing partner Feargal O’Rourke, Donohoe addressed the rate at which the government is lifting the blockade measures. “I am very aware of what the consequences would be if the disease strengthened again,” he said.
Investments
Donohoe was also asked if he was concerned about the apparent desire of the President of the United States, Donald Trump, for pharmaceutical manufacturers to return to the United States. “At the risk of declaring the blindingly obvious, they have a fundamentally different view of global trade and the global economy than their predecessors,” said Donohoe. But he said that steps taken by the United States in the past “enabled Ireland to maintain and, in many cases, increase our share of global investment and global jobs.”
“I think this government and the future Irish governments will be able to work with President Trump or a future president to sustain American investment in Ireland because I think we can present a compelling case as to why this interests those economies,” he said. Mr. Donohoe, however, wished to emphasize that trade should be mutually beneficial.
[ad_2]