Staff Paper 2019 : Quality of Employment : Indicators and Trends

Abstract

The performance of the labour market is of critical concern to the Government’s economic and social policies. The level, type and nature of employment within the economy has implicit implications across policy areas including living standards, social supports and enterprise and economic development. There has been a significant labour market recovery within Ireland following the economic downturn. Total employment has reached a new peak and the economy is currently moving towards a position of full employment. However, there are a number of challenges including regional variation in performance, a relatively low labour force participation rate and various potential economic challenges. Given developments, further policy emphasis has been placed on the nature and quality of employment as well as targeting productivity growth, particularly among SMEs. This follows a period where significant focus was placed on job creation .1 and is signalled within the Future Jobs strategy launched in March 2019. The overall policy focus is on highly productive and sustainable jobs and five pillars have been established to progress. A key question which this paper seeks to explore is how is the quality of employment best measured, how does Ireland’s current labour market perform and how has this changed over time. While it is well known that the overall labour market has improved, it is important to consider whether the quality and nature of employment has changed in terms of a number of factors. This paper contributes to a range of research which has been completed by IGEES in the areas of enterprise policy, employment and incomes.