What can the government do to encourage employment?

Sleepy

Inspired by the thread on Shane Ross's proposal to threaten our EU partners with an "even lower" corporation tax rate, I'm wondering what options our government has at it's disposal to "create jobs"?

• Employer PRSI tax holidays for all new hires?
• Increased funding for Enterprise Ireland to support indigenous companies?
• A (temporary?) tax credit for each new job created?
• Increased support for training costs to be written off against tax / supported by FÁS for new hires?
• A public works program? (j/k!)

Idbatterim

cut welfare and use the savings to lower cost of doing business here, lower employers prsi, reduce red tape, look after the self employed, if the worst comes to the worst and the businesses folds. They should atleast get JSB. The way they look after the other extreme of wasters who have never lifted a finger and milk the system and contribute nothing."

gigino

Idbatterim wrote: »

cut welfare and use the savings to lower cost of doing business here, lower employers prsi, reduce red tape, look after the self employed, if the worst comes to the worst and the businesses folds. They should atleast get JSB. The way they look after the other extreme of wasters who have never lifted a finger and milk the system and contribute nothing."

+1. Plus self employed pay a higher percentage of tax than PAYE people, as PAYE people have the PAYE allowance. If the government wants people to create jobs for themselves, it should not maintain the situation where employees are better off tax wise than someone taking the risks.

hmmm

Stop local councils levelling higher and higher rates on businesses to plug the hole in their finances. We still seem to need 8 council workers to fill each individual pothole. If we need to offload the tax burden onto households, so be it. The same goes for the semi states, we have a hugely well paid ESB. We also have endless numbers of license fees and other rackets which keep highly paid staff in quangos gainfully employed.

Other taxes on job creation include the minimum wage and employers PRSI. Both are crazy in that they discourage the creation of entry level jobs.

RichardAnd

End the FAS WPP and make it illegal for employers to advertise and offer jobs with no salary. If someone wishes to work to gain experiance then that it fine and their buisness but I don't see the economic value in having people working for free.

MagicSean

Subsidise the wage of someone who is on the dole.

Sleepy

I'd think that given the precarious state of our national finances, any incentives would have to be only for new positions being created / positions that would otherwise be made redundant.

The councils are logically an easy fix if politically an extremely unpopular one: merge the councils into regional rather than county councils, doing away with town and borough councils. Sure, the same number of roadsweepers, maintenance staff for public property etc. will still be needed but *HUGE* efficiencies and savings are there for the taking in terms of the admin functions, councillors allowances and expenses etc. Never mind the reduced numbers of properties to be kept and maintained.

dan_d

+1 Sleepy.

I also think they need to cut red tape, make setting up a business easier, reduce the massive rates in the city, review or abolish upward only rents, leave the minimum wage at the new level, PRSI holidays for all new employees (even just for a period of 1 or 2 years), offer JSB to the self-employed (again, even just for a year or two), reduce the dole slightly for those on it up to 3 years, and cut it right down (replace with vouchers only if necessary) for those on it 5+ years. They also need to put an end date on this WPP thing - it's gone on too long and it's taking the p&*s at this stage. They'd do well to review FAS activities too...

krissovo

Create 100,000 FAS work placement schemes in all sectors, a "Try before you Buy" type arrangement for 6 to 12 months. At least 50k of those will be offered permanent jobs.

My company just hired 18 FAS students out of 22 after they spent 12 months with us. Operational costs during that time were low enabling investment in other areas and effectively expanding so that by the end of the period we could afford to offer full time jobs.

hinault

Difficult one.

Our internal market has died a thousand debts through legacy debts, increased taxation and the opportunity cost of pumping billions in to dead banks.

Employment numbers will not increase directly from FDI companies - so when politicians say that exports will lead to employment recovery they're not correct.

I think we need to look at taxation and the cost of government expenditure.
Since 2003 government expenditure has exceeded government income.

kilburn

Idbatterim wrote: »

cut welfare and use the savings to lower cost of doing business here, lower employers prsi, reduce red tape, look after the self employed, if the worst comes to the worst and the businesses folds. They should atleast get JSB. The way they look after the other extreme of wasters who have never lifted a finger and milk the system and contribute nothing."

+1 on this all very simple and easy things to do. Rates have to be cut by the local authorities it is a roadblock for some new business', too much red tape and forms to be filled in also

BeeDI

Think of sectors which are indigenous and labur intensive. Tourism / hospitality and agriculture / agri business.
Reform the JLC pay rates, governing Sunday and holidy pay rates in these sectors.
Get rid of the tarvel tax completely, not partially.
Bring in a new 5% VAT rate on all hotel and resturaunts.

Stimulate agriculture with a similar VAT rate for say two years for non VAT registered farmers for on farm investment.

Use bigger NAMA properties, to set up english language schools focused on teacing english to Chinese students.

Tigerbaby

rescind the smoking ban. Watch all those nicotine-starved UK and European drinkers and smokers come here in waves.

deadly serious !

ei.sdraob

Government plans to introduce a jobs budget in its first 100 days in office.

mikemac

If there are NAMA properties out there like industrial estates, let them to new startups or even existing businesses that can show a good case at minimal cost

I mean the properties are there and sitting idle. If you're not going to firesale them then may as well get a tenant in, even if the rent is not so high

High rent is a killer for many businesses

mikemac

BeeDI wrote: »

Use bigger NAMA properties, to set up english language schools focused on teacing english to Chinese students.

There are no shortage of these in Ireland and some exist only on paper, a backdoor way to get a visa and work in Ireland

The 20 hour working rule isn't enforced
A programme waiting to be made by the likes of Primetime Investigates

RichardAnd

ei.sdraob wrote: »

Government plans to introduce a jobs budget in its first 100 days in office.

This will probably be greeted with the usual boards.ie self defeating pessimism but I for one am happy to see this. Even if all such a budget does it halts unemployment at its current levels, it will be a good thing so good luck to Enda and the boys, they'll need it.

On another note, does anyone know what they might actually do for such a budget? Just from reading the report on RTE, I saw work placements and internships mentioned. People doing unpaid work isn't what we need, we need proper, paid jobs, not working for free nonsense.

ei.sdraob

RichardAnd wrote: »

This will probably be greeted with the usual boards.ie self defeating pessimism.

Minister Bruton said the Government will be developing programmes to head off the trend of long-term unemployment, including the introduction of 60,000 work programmes, training places, and internships.

I think its a good idea, plenty could be learned by people getting internships in semistates for example

snickerpuss

I am sick of hearing the goverment say they're going to introduce training and internships and more FAS WPPs. Where's the incentive to hire anyone? I can't just go from internship to training programme, working for free for the rest of my life and ensuring only unpaid jobs are created in my field of study. Argh! We need jobs not endless placements.

RichardAnd

ei.sdraob wrote: »

I think its a good idea, plenty could be learned by people getting internships in semistates for example

Yeah but at the end of the day, work is only a means to an end and the end is gaining money. 60k internships if they are unpaid will not stimulate the economy by very much at all. I'd rather see 6k people getting paid jobs than 60k getting an internship.

In the past, people did apprenticeships where they got paid feck all for a few years whilst working towards a proper job but they were still paid. I don't know where the idea of work placements came from but except for a few cases, they are something that should be prevented.

We're three years into a recession here, people are sick and tired of hearing about WPP "jobs" and "exciting opportunities". Getting paid for a day's work is a basic and totally reasonable expectation and we need people getting real jobs.

This, by the way, is coming from a fairly recent graduate who was lucky enough to find an employer honest enough to offer a salary!