The Irish Small and Medium Enterprises Association (ISME) has this month slammed the Republic's government once again for delays in implementing the jobs initiative that was a key post-election pledge.

Commenting following the release by the Central Statistics Office of the most recent live register figures, ISME Chief Executive, Mark Fielding observed that: “The seasonally adjusted live register figures for at the end of 2011 confirm that a massive 443,200 peoplere claiming assistance. Consequently, the standardised unemployment rate stands at 14.3%."

The live register does not measure unemployment, but covers those working part-time, and seasonal and casual workers in receipt of Jobseekers Benefit or Allowance.

Fielding continued:

"Targeting unemployment requires more than PR generated lip service, a couple of training schemes and the ‘hopeless and harmful’ reliance on emigration to somehow weather the storm. Real and coherent jobs policies are badly needed, instead of the sector being constantly hit with state influenced rising costs,
increased bureaucracy and ‘mad cap’ mandatory sick pay proposals."

Revealing that 22% of the SMEs questioned for the most recent ISME Trends Survey expect to reduce their staffing levels over the coming year, with economic uncertainty and poor access to finance cited as key factors behind this decision, Fielding stated that:

"The reality is that many of these struggling SMEs will be reviewing their investment and employment position over the next number of weeks and unless immediate Government action is taken to address their concerns, more jobs will be lost. It is imperative that the jobs initiative be announced immediately.”

This is not the first call from the ISME for faster government action on the jobs initiative; in October of last year, following the government's announcement that it did not plan to unveil details of its strategy to boost employment until early 2012, the ISME chief expressed strong outrage at the delay, arguing that:

“It is beyond belief that as over 300,000 people remain jobless and with over 200 jobs being lost daily through redundancy, that the Government are not going to bother addressing the problem until they come up with a plan in January, by which time the situation will have deteriorated further. The words Nero and Rome come to mind”.

He continued:

“What have these people been doing? They have been in power for over 7 months, and have made no impact on the unemployment numbers. Delaying a jobs strategy by a further 3 months, in the current environment, is an insult and far too late for thousands of people, whose jobs remain under severe pressure”.

The Small Firms Association presented a more measured response to the most recent live register figures, welcoming the drop in the number of people receiving assistance by 3,300 in December, but suggesting that "we cannot ignore the fact that our labour market is fragile and the overall figures highlight the huge challenges that are being faced to get people back to work and that the focus on job creation is getting more critical by the day".

Assistant Director Avine McNally went on to explain that:

“What is also concerning about the continuing levels of job losses is that our ability to create new jobs is being damaged by rising business costs; uncertainty in the economy and limited access to credit. Small businesses are struggling to save jobs as they have to cut costs further in the face of ongoing economic uncertainty in both the Eurozone and in the domestic market. Until adequate credit flow returns to the business sector, investment will also remain weak."

And concluded:

"There is a clear need for the Government to now prioritise these issues to stop further job losses in 2012."