The Irish Government has revealed ambitious job targets in its 2015 Spring Statement
IDA Ireland and Enterprise Ireland are projecting 120,000 new jobs – that’s 80,0000 and 40,000 respectively – between now and 2020, Finance Minister Michael Noonan TD said in the Government’s Spring Statement.
In his Spring Statement the Finance Minister said that the country recorded GDP growth of nearly 5pc last year and his department is projecting GDP growth of 4pc this year.
He said that economic recovery is yielding benefits in the labour market, with 95,000 net new jobs created since the low-point of the economic crisis.
Unemployment, Noonan said, has fallen by 5pc since its peak.
Two million people will be at work in the Irish economy by 2020
The Government is continuing with its Action Plan for Jobs, part of a wider strategy to see 2m people at work by the end of 2016.
Minister Noonan said that the employment lost during the downturn will be recovered by 2018 and there will be more people working in Ireland by 2020 than ever before.
The IDA’s Winning Foreign Direct Investment 2015 to 2019 aims to win 900 new investments for Ireland in the next four years, creating 80,000 new jobs and 35,000 net jobs.
IDA also sets an objective of winning €3bn in new R&D investment projects.
Enterprise Ireland’s Driving Enterprise, Delivering Jobs strategy to 2016 aims to create more than 40,000 new jobs in Irish companies, increasing exports by €5bn to €22bn by 2016 and beyond that to €27bn by 2020.
Other areas of job growth include 10,000 new jobs in the international financial services sector and a boom in construction to meet the need for 25,000 new dwellings a year over the next 15 years.
The Government is also targeting a 42pc increase in agri-food exports by 2020 under its Food Harvest 2020 strategy.
Minister Noonan said he was encouraged by the dataflow over the past year that shows that the economic recovery of Ireland is gaining momentum and is becoming more broadly based.
“This is just the start of the recovery and the figures tally with what I see on the ground: more people are working; people have more income in their pockets; people are more confident about the future, businesses are being created and are expanding,” he told the Dail.
Government buildings Dublin image via Shutterstock
