Crackdown on ‘hardcore unemployed’

UP to 50,000 “hardcore unemployed” people will be regularly quizzed about their efforts to find work under a major transformation of the State’s unemployment payments.

The State will expect people in receipt of the welfare payments to show they are actively seeking jobs.

Currently, a person is unemployed for six months before the Department of Social Affairs refers him or her for interview with FÁS.

Social Affairs Minister Seamus Brennan wants this period reduced to a month, and for recipients to be interviewed frequently after that to determine what obstacles are preventing them from finding work.

The department estimates there is “a hardcore” of between 30,000 and 50,000 long-term unemployed. The official definition of long-term unemployed is anyone receiving unemployment payments for 12 months or more.

The names of the two main payments - unemployment benefit and unemployment assistance - will be changed in legislation which Mr Brennan plans to introduce in the first half of next year. They will be renamed jobseeker’s benefit and jobseeker’s allowance respectively.

Jobseeker is the title of the British unemployment allowance programme under which payments are made only if the recipient verifies every fortnight that they are seeking employment.

In July, Mr Brennan told of his plans to have that programme assessed. He has now confirmed his plans to move towards a similar system here.

Mr Brennan’s department said yesterday it had yet to be decided just how often recipients would be asked about their efforts to find work.

The new system could, if successful, help reduce the State’s social welfare bill while at the same time filling gaps in the workforce.

According to the Central Statistics Office, 50,000 immigrant workers are required each year to fill such gaps and maintain the country’s economic growth.

However, Mr Brennan says neither of those are the key reason for the changes to the unemployment schemes.

“Look, at the end of the day, the real answer to any kind of deprivation or poverty is employment,” he said. “Everything else is a safety net.”

He said the department would continue its policy of “activation” - assisting those who wish to take up jobs but are afraid of ending up actually worse off than before. Mr Brennan aims to lengthen the period in which recipients can continue to claim reduced benefits after finding employment.

“By allowing people to hold their benefits longer when they take up jobs, that’s the best kind of Jobseeker strategy,” he said.

The department says that, based on past trends, 100,000 of the 150,000 people currently on the Live Register will return to work within 12 months.