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2 years before stimulus will create jobs

Tuesday, July 17 16:00:22

Thousands more construction jobs will be lost before any work on the new stimulus package begins, according to the Construction Industry Federation (CIF).

Despite promises by the Government that 13,000 new jobs will be created under their plan, the CIF believes that number of jobs will be lost in the construction sector before building on these projects begins.

Under the details of the new plan brought forward by the Government, construction on the various projects will not begin until 2013 at the earliest, with most of the work confined to 2014 onwards.

"By the time construction work begins under this plan, it is likely that thousands more construction jobs will have been lost," according to CIF Director General Tom Parlon. "The vague timelines mentioned in the Government's plan indicate that construction work will not commence until 2013 at the earliest. Most of the construction work does not really get going until 2014 or the years after that." "The Government claims they will create 13,000 jobs under this plan, but when you look at the trend in construction employment more than that number will lose their jobs before construction work begins. In the first three months of 2012 construction employment dropped by five thousand. This is an industry that has seen employment fall from 269,900 in 2007 to 102,600 so far this year. There is no sign of that trend reversing any time soon and this announcement will not help in the short term," said Mr Parlon.

"It's also worth remembering that capital spending was reduced by E755 million from the original estimate for this year and 2013's allocation has been cut by a further E550 million."

"The CIF has been actively pressing for a stimulus package to be rolled out. We believe that a stimulus package could be one of strongest and most accessible tools for creating jobs and bringing forward further investment. We are happy that some progress has been achieved in that sense."

"But the reality is that the timings envisioned by the Government are quite a long time out. There is little sense of urgency in today's announcement. The construction sector has been crying out for greater capital investment. However going on today's announcement it we won't see any real progress for another eighteen months to two years," Mr. Parlon concluded.