Pathways to Work 2021-2025

Pathways to Work 2021-2025 Prepared by the Department of Social Protection The country has, over the past sixteen months, experienced a labour market shock like no other. Many people were temporarily laid-off as a result of COVID-19. For many of these people, work has already returned or awaits their return, but for some people their old jobs have been permanently lost. The purpose of this strategy is to help these people prepare for and secure employment. Pathways to Work 2021 - 2025 Table of contents Taoiseach’s Foreword............................................................................................................................................. 3 Minister’s Foreword ............................................................................................................................................... 5 Executive Summary and Key Deliverables ..................................................................................................... 6 01 Introduction – The Public Employment Service and the Road to Recovery .................................. 13 Context ................................................................................................................................................................... 14 Pathways to Work: Wider Strategic Framework ........................................................................................... 15 Delivering a Quality Public Employment Service ....................................................................................... 17 The External Environment: COVID-19 Shock and ‘Aftershock’ ............................................................. 19 Challenges and Actions ...................................................................................................................................... 22 Goals and Objectives: Inputs, Outputs & Outcomes ................................................................................ 25 The Labour Market Advisory Council - Evidence Based Policy .............................................................. 28 02 Intreo – Working for Jobseekers ................................................................................................................. 29 The Mission of the Public Employment Service ......................................................................................... 30 Service Delivery in a COVID-19 / Post-COVID-19 Environment ................................................................... 36 03 Working for Employers ................................................................................................................................... 51 04 The Welfare System - Working for Work ................................................................................................. 57 05 Working for All - Leaving No One Behind ................................................................................................ 61 Working for Lone Parents ................................................................................................................................. 63 Working for People with Disabilities .............................................................................................................. 65 Working for Older Workers and ‘Returners’ ................................................................................................ 69 Working for Young People with Disadvantage ............................................................................................ 71 Working for Minority Groups with Disadvantage ...................................................................................... 75 06 Working with Evidence - Governance and Reporting .......................................................................... 79 Informing Policy with Evidence ........................................................................................................................ 80 Targets and Deliverables .................................................................................................................................... 81 Governance, Reporting and Review ............................................................................................................... 82 Appendix ..................................................................................................................................................... 83 1 Pathways to Work 2021 - 2025 High Level Ambitions Reduce long-term Reduce the youth unemployment unemployment rate Pathways to Work 2021-2025 High-Level Ambitions Ensure better Improve labour labour market market transitions outcomes for all 83 commitments, including Expand the caseload capacity of the Invest in digitalising the Public Employment Public Employment Service by increasing Service to maximise the reach and the number of Case Officers by 50%. efficiencies of blended service delivery. Assign a dedicated Case Officer to all Pay employers a subsidy of €7,500 unemployed people to help support - €10,000 when they recruit an them make the transition back to work. unemployed jobseeker. Deliver 1.6 million Case Officer Host 150 Job Promotion engagements with jobseekers every Events annually. 12 months. Launch a new paid Work Placement Develop a new Employer Experience Programme to benefit Relations strategy. 10,000 jobseekers. Deliver 10,000 apprenticeship Develop proposals on delivering a opportunities every year by 2025. basic income guarantee. Increase the number of places available Develop proposals for a new pay-related on State Employment Schemes. short-duration jobseeker payment. Reserve places on public employment Offer 50,000 further education and programmes for young people and people from training place opportunities. disadvantaged and minority backgrounds. 2 Pathways to Work 2021 - 2025 Taoiseach’s Foreword Ireland has, in common with all societies I am particularly conscious of disruption to the throughout the world, reeled from the effects lives and livelihoods of young people arising of the pandemic. Nowhere has this been from the pandemic, including those who joined more evident than in the unprecedented the labour force for the first time as they impact on jobs and employment. moved from full-time education. That is why under Pathways to Work the Government will The Government’s response has been equally invest significantly in employment supports for unprecedented, providing critical income and young people, by introducing and ring-fencing employment supports, such as the Pandemic places on work placement programmes, by Unemployment Payment and Employment increasing the availability of apprenticeships, Wage Subsidy Scheme to cushion this impact traineeships and education places and by on workers and businesses. offering employers attractive subsidies when they recruit young unemployed people. We now need to match this extraordinary response to income supports with a similarly Pathways to Work is not just about those who unparalleled response to helping people get lost their jobs during the pandemic, it is also back to work. about helping those who even in pre-COVID times faced disadvantage in the labour market. In doing so we want to not just rebuild our Employment is vital to individual well-being not economy and society, but to rebuild better just in the financial sense but in terms of social, and to rebuild fairer. physical and mental health. That’s why this strategy also includes specific commitments to As set out in the Economic Recovery Plan, improve labour market outcomes for people this ambitious, forward-looking strategy, facing higher barriers to employment, including Pathways to Work, sets out a new model people from minority communities, people with for Ireland’s public employment services. disabilities, older people and people, including It commits the State to 83 specific actions lone-parents, with extra caring responsibilities. to help people reskill, retrain and most importantly, find and sustain new jobs. The Government is determined to drive a jobs-led economic recovery, to build back It also commits to developing new models of better, and to build back fairer. welfare payments – payments that are not only fairer but that can adapt more easily to Pathways to Work is a crucial part of our the changing nature of work. ambition to realise those goals. Micheál Martin T.D. An Taoiseach 3 As our society and economy re-open, our focus now is on supporting people back into employment. 4 Pathways to Work 2021 - 2025 Minister’s Foreword COVID-19 has demonstrated more than This strategy places a major focus on reducing ever the importance of providing a strong and preventing long-term unemployment social protection system for our citizens. and in particular on supporting young people From the onset of the pandemic, the by giving them the skills and training they Department of Social Protection and our need to find a job. Backed by a total of 83 staff across the country responded quickly commitments across Government, it sets and decisively to support hundreds of out our plans to deliver over 1.6 million thousands of workers who lost their jobs engagements with jobseekers each year, overnight through no fault of their own. to provide 50,000 new education and training places, to provide 10,000 new work As our society and economy re-open, our placement opportunities and to provide focus now is on supporting people back into 10,000 apprenticeships each year between employment. Thankfully many businesses are now and 2025. getting back up and running

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