Irish Association Calls For Employment Subsidy Scheme Extension To SMEs

by Jason Gorringe, Tax-News.com, London

18 January 2010

ISME, the Irish Small and Medium Enterprises Association, has called for the Employment Subsidy Scheme to be expanded to include companies with less than 10 employees, who are currently excluded from any employment maintenance assistance.

In a statement, the Association warned that further job losses were imminent, unless the government immediately implemented a national employment plan as part of a National Enterprise Strategy to address the ongoing crisis.

Reacting to the redundancy figures for 2009 issued by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, ISME Chief Executive Mark Fielding berated the government for ignoring the plight of smaller businesses that employ fewer than 10 employees who are excluded from the latest employment scheme. He pointed out that the vast majority of redundancies have come from this small business sector and yet these have been denied assistance.

“77,001 people were made redundant in the last 12 months, the highest annual figure ever recorded, a 90% increase on the previous year. The figures, confirm that nearly half (47%) of the redundancies were in Construction and Manufacturing. 38% of job losses were in the Services sector and females now account for 32% of redundancies, confirming that job losses are now spread throughout the whole economy, with small enterprises bearing the brunt of the redundancies,” Fielding said.

“Nobody in authority seems to realize the extent of the problem in indigenous businesses and in small and micro businesses in particular. To date, all we have is a piecemeal approach, with no evident overall Enterprise Strategy in place. The much hyped Employment Subsidy Scheme, for instance, will only assist less than 1% of businesses, with the rest left, as usual to sink or swim. From an SME perspective the omens are not good, with the Association predicting hundreds of company closures and thousands of further job losses over the next number of months, unless assistance is provided.”

“If the economy is to grow it can only be done by supporting the wealth creators, through the introduction and implementation of a National Enterprise Strategy. Any further delays will only exacerbate a problem that continues to deteriorate on a daily basis.”

ISME has called on the government to immediately extend the Employment Subsidy Scheme to include businesses with fewer than 10 employees, representing over 90% of business establishments.

Recommended