A special Consultation Forum was held in Dublin Castle this morning to explore key issues and labour market priorities and develop policy actions to inform the new Pathways to Work 2016–2020 Strategy. 
 
Pathways to Work is the employment strategy, first launched in 2012 and updated regularly since then, to help jobseekers back to work. 
 
The Forum was attended by representatives of the Department of Social Protection, the INOU, IBEC and other key stakeholders and was a follow-up to a survey of over 200 stakeholders conducted over the summer months. 
 
Addressing the Forum, the Tánaiste and Minister for Social Protection, Joan Burton, T.D. said, "The numbers in work have now reached over 1.96 million and unemployment has fallen to 9.4%. Long term unemployment has fallen from 9.5% to 5.5%, and youth unemployment has fallen from 33% to 22%. But we still have much work to do and that’s where Pathways to Work 2016-2020 comes in."

She added, "Some people start from a viewpoint that people who are unemployed do not want to work, that they have chosen for a life on welfare. That is not my experience. Overwhelmingly people want to work. We saw that before the recession when unemployment was under 4%. We see it now in the numbers returning to work. 

"However opportunities are not equal; people who have been long term unemployed, young-people who, due to the recession, may not have had a chance to work, people with caring responsibilities and people with disabilities all face major barriers in getting a chance to prove their worth in employment. This is what we need to turn our attention to now."
 
The outcome form the forum will be considered by Government as it drafts a new Pathways to Work strategy for 2016 – 2020. It is expected that this strategy will be published by January 2016.
 
Source: www.businessworld.ie