OPINION: It's time to reassess the unemployment crisis and the balance between work and welfare
JOAN BURTON’S recent comment that social welfare is a “lifestyle choice” for some people, and her warning that those refusing to take up training or employment opportunities could face welfare cuts, drew the predictable hostile response from predictable quarters. But little else. It was a brave stance for a Labour Party Minister, and one that challenges the prevailing national narrative about unemployment.
There is no doubting the enormity of the country’s unemployment crisis. Whether one uses the Live Register yardstick of 458,000 currently signing on, or the more accurate Quarterly National Household Survey, which puts the numbers unemployed at 295,000, these are awful numbers. There are multiple Croke Park capacities of unemployed people, of all working ages, up and down the country, struggling desperately to make ends meet.
But is the jobs market really as grim and bleak as these headline figures suggest?
Take the retail and hospitality sectors. Is it not surprising there continue to be so many foreign nationals working in hotels, restaurants, high street stores, supermarkets, corner shops and garage forecourt outlets? I have nothing against these people (quite the contrary), but why are more and more of these jobs not now being appropriated by Irish nationals?
Are some Irish people work-shy? Or are they unwilling to work in the retail and hospitality sectors, deeming such occupations demeaning? Or do they deliberately choose welfare over work (pace Burton)? Because when rent supplement and a medical card are taken into account, they are better off on the dole, now officially called Jobseeker’s Allowance? For some people is the very term jobseeker something of an oxymoron?
I pose these questions because of a number of observations.
Take much wealthier countries than Ireland, such as France or Italy. In their hotels, restaurants and shops you will only encounter native workers. And they are certainly not earning as much as their counterparts in Ireland.
This time last year, Charlie Bird (deputising for Marian Finucane on RTÉ radio) spoke to a panel of articulate, well- qualified 20-somethings bemoaning the absence of job opportunities. To underline the fact that she had done everything possible to avoid emigration, one woman said she had “even worked in restaurants”. No one on the programme found the comment odd.
About five years ago, I stayed in a well-known hotel in the midwest and was struck by the apparent absence of Irish staff. I expressed my curiosity to the manager, a local person. His response was sobering. Yes, he had employed many locals over the years, he assured me, but there were constant problems. His own leave days were invariably interrupted by staff failing to show up or calling in “sick”.
And the hotel uniform posed ongoing problems. Pointing to the simple attire of staff, he said his foreign staff looked after the uniform, and wore it with pride. His Irish workers would lose the waistcoat or tie, and the white shirt could remain crumpled and unwashed for days.
Consider also so-called “dirtier” industries. Many jobs in the market gardening sector, a natural industry for our temperate climate, are now the preserve of immigrants because this work is seen as drudgery by Irish people.
And meat-processing: it’s a fair bet that many of the 2,925 Brazilians granted PPS numbers in the first six months of this year have taken up jobs in meat factories around the country.
It’s time we reassessed the national narrative surrounding our unemployment crisis. The “no jobs” mantra not only overwhelms the genuine jobseekers, but also suits the disposition of the work-shy and the welfare abuser.
I’m not extolling lower-paid employment, or criticising the right of every adult to continually aspire to better-paid, more challenging work. Nor am I advocating the replacement of existing foreign nationals in our workforce. But with the Government investing so much in reviving and expanding the retail and hospitality sectors, from raiding private sector pension funds to cutting VAT and reforming antiquated workplace regulations, it is important to ask if an expansion in the jobs market will lead to a reduction of tens of thousands on the Live Register, and a consequent reduction in the State’s social welfare bill, or simply an expansion in the number of overseas workers.
Working in shops, supermarkets and restaurants is worthwhile; it promotes real people skills, and – relative to even our nearest neighbours in Britain and Northern Ireland – it pays reasonably well. The same is true for meat-processing and horticulture.
Our unemployment crisis is a multilayered monster. Yes, we need to keep expanding foreign direct investment by multinationals. We need to go on growing our very successful indigenous IT and agri-food sectors. We need innovations such as the new JobBridge mentoring programme. And we need Government action to tackle the poverty traps that thousands of genuine jobseekers encounter when faced with choosing between welfare and work. That means recalibrating significantly the work-welfare intersection.
Stephen O’Byrnes is a director of MKC Communications PR and public affairs consultancy in Dublin