Background to the Research

• From the 1920s to the 1960s employment in agriculture in the South of Ireland declined dramatically and employment in the industrial and service sector grew considerably. Throughout this period, unemployment and emigration remained high. The recent upturn in the South's economic performance and interventionist policies by the state and the EU have seen Ireland portrayed as a success story in terms of economic development and growth.
  

Research Approach

• The author argues that the labour market in the South is highly polarised into those in and out of work. Furthermore, upgrading of positions within employment is combined with the exclusion of those lacking the skills to gain access to employment.
• The author uses official labour market data and secondary sources from 1970-90 to explore the nature of employment/unemlpoyment and to review developments in state employment policy.
  

Main Findings

• Four major trends can be identified in employment from the 1970s to 1990s. There was a decline in income from property ownership and an increased dependency on wage and salary employment. Employment in the public sector increased.There was an upsurge in upgrading of positions in the labour market - by the early 1980s, half of those in work were in middle-class positions. This was accompanied by a marked decline in the demand for semi-skilled manual labour. Finally there was a marked increase in the number of women in work.
• Unemployment began to rise steadily in the 1970s and increased rapidly in the 1980s. In 1981, 10% of the labour force was unemployed, rising to 17% in 1986, the figure for 1996 was 12.9%. The South has one of the highest long-term unemployment rates in the EU. In 1994, 15% of the labour force were unemployed - 9% were LTU. It is estimated that in 1994 the share of long-term unemployment in the total unemployment was nearly 63%.
• High youth unemployment is also a feature of the labour market in the South. In 1981 nearly 15% of labour force participants in the age group 15-24 years were unemployed. Youth unemployment peaked in 1993 at over 27% of the young labour force, nearly double the unemployment rate among older members of the labour force.
• Both the LTU and early school leavers were mainly from the working class. This ensured that class inequalities remained largely unchanged by economic restructuring.
• Since the 1980s, the response of the state to high unemployment has been active labour market policies. By the end of the 1990s, the South was one of the leading spenders of national income on active labour market policies. These included the mobilising of the labour supply, improving skills and strengthening the search process in the labour market.

Conclusions

• High economic growth and increases in employment in the South is an achievement, especially in the context of the lacklustre performance of other European countries. Without doubt, increased economic growth is essential to reducing unemployment.
• Over the three decades under review there has been growing polarisation between those with skills that fit with the modern labour market and those without - between the employed and the unemployed.
• This polarisation is exacerbated by greater upward mobility within work and greater social exclusion for the unemployed in the changing economy.
• The upgrading of positions in the labour market for the employed is part of an established trend. It is anticipated that employment growth will accumulate in the professional, managerial and propertorial occupations alongside substantial growth in the lower occupations of sales, security and service occupations.
• The strong growth in women's participation in the workforce since 1993 will continue - 60% of the net increase in employment is accounted for by women.
• If the trend established in the 1990s continues, about 30% of the net increase in employment will be part-time work. This is mostly carried out by women, low paid and periodic.
• Despite a great deal of state intervention there has been no coherent strategic approach to tackling unemployment and social exclusion. A pattern of increasing inequality has taken place
• The net increase in employment of 136,000 between 1993-96 resulted in a decline in unemployment of about 40,000 and the increase in employment of 55,000 between 1995-6 reduced unemployment by only 1,000.
• The continuation of high unemployment despite rapid employment growth is due to the strong growth in the labour force. This shows that there is a high demand for work, and large numbers of young people and previously economically inactive women are entering the labour market.
• Current labour market policies in the South are not adequate enough to improve the employment prospects of the most marginalised of the unemployed.