The Union of Students in Ireland is calling on the lacklustre Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Innovation, Batt O’Keeffe, to “get real” about graduate unemployment before it is too late.
Minister O’ Keeffe announced a new initiative — Graduates 4 International Growth — which will create 50 placements for unemployed graduates.
However, at the current rate of graduate emigration, this will negate just two and a half days of graduates emigrating from Ireland, leaving the remaining 100,000 with little hope of Government intervention as they move abroad over the coming five years in search of jobs.
The cost of this proposed programme would be minimal to both the Government and employers. The Government would already be paying social welfare benefits for these unemployed graduates but would now benefit from the increase in GDP brought about by an influx of new graduates into the labour market. Employers would benefit from gaining fresh knowledge and greater output from graduate interns without having to bare the financial burden of remuneration. Graduates would also benefit from the experience; they would maintain their skills and reconnect to the labour market.
This programme would free thousands of Irish graduates from the grip of long-term unemployment. It would also ensure graduates would attain places in both the public and private sectors, while retaining their social welfare benefits.
“The time has come for the government to get real about combating graduate unemployment,” said GMIT Castlebar’s student union president Alan Judge. “Creating 50 placements is admirable, but it appears the minister fails to realise the extent of the problem facing this country.
“The creation of 50 placements solves just .0005 per cent of the graduate unemployment problem and with almost 100,000 graduates now out of work, the minister cannot afford to ignore the need for large scale measures such as a national internship programme.”
