Sir, – The Impact report on the discredited JobBridge scheme gives us food for thought on what the role of the State should be in ending unemployment ("JobBridge scheme out of control, warns union", April 25th).
The State tends to be portrayed as having a merely facilitative role in creating jobs – its task is to assist private industry in providing opportunities by making it easier to do business. However, full employment can never be sustained on a permanent basis by relying on the private sector alone, due to the fluctuations inevitable in a market economy.
Sweden formerly had a policy of using the state as an employer of last resort, before abandoning it under pressure from international lenders in the 1990s. If we genuinely want to have permanent full employment, we should seriously examine this model.
At an ideological level, such an approach could attract the claim that it would be “uneconomical” to create jobs in order to meet a social objective of work for everyone. Yet such an argument could equally be made against hiring teachers to provide an education for everyone. There are times when we must make economic sacrifices to achieve valuable social objectives, and there can be few objectives more worthy than abolishing the scourge of unemployment. – Yours, etc,
OSAL KELLY,
Delgany,
Co Wicklow.