Young people in Offaly disproportionately affected by Covid-19 economic fallout

Young people in Offaly have been disproportionately affected by the economic fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic. According to the National Youth Council of Ireland (NYCI), on July 5, over one in five (1250) of the 5,587 Offaly people receiving the Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) were under the age of 25.

Nationally, 89,544 (22%) of the 413,039 people in receipt of the PUP are aged between 18 and 25. The NYCI, which represents organisations working with over 380,000 young people nationwide – has called on the Government to bring forward a package of measures to support young jobseekers with a €191m investment to address the high levels of youth unemployment in the July Jobs Initiative to be announced this week.

“With 1,250 young people under 25 in county Offaly in receipt of the Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) and at a time when we have 45.4% youth unemployment and over 140,000 young people out of work, it is vital that the July Jobs Initiative focuses heavily on the needs of young jobseekers,” commented James Doorley, NYCI Deputy Director.

NYCI in its submission to Government is calling for an immediate €191m package of measures to support young people to access education, training, apprenticeships and also to incentivise employers to take on young workers.“

NYCI is calling for investment in programmes such as the Back to Education Allowance, SOLAS training programmes, the Youth Employment Support Scheme, a national Access to Apprenticeship Programme and Jobsplus Youth that will support up to 28,000 young people.“Further investment and actions will be required later this year, in light of the scale of the challenge, but we need to make a start now and give young people some hope and support,” explained Mr Doorley.

“The number of young people on the PUP since the peak in early May has declined by over 32,000. This is very welcome, and we hope it continues to decline further. However, the reality is that even if half the current number on the payment exit, that would still leave 45,000 young people out of work.

“As a society and an economy, we cannot afford to make the mistakes of the past, where young people were left to linger on the dole queues for years on end and the Governmental response was slow and inadequate.

“That is why NYCI is calling for actions and investment now and €191m investment. We acknowledge that this may appear a large sum, but the cost of leaving 28,000 young people on the dole for a year would be €164m, so the net cost of the measures we are proposing would be just €27m.

"This of course does not take into account the social and financial benefit of the proposed measures for young people, their families, communities and Irish society as a whole. Just last week our neighbours in the UK, announced a €2bn fund to tackle youth unemployment,” continued Mr Doorley.

“It is recognised that the new Government will have to borrow to fund a stimulus package in the next few years. While the current costs of borrowing money are low, these funds will have to be paid back overtime. Young people as taxpayers will end up paying back the highest proportion of this investment, so it is only fair and in the interests of intergenerational solidarity, that they should also benefit proportionately from these funds to restart the economy.“

"It also makes social and economic sense to invest in measures to support young people back into work, because their participation and contribution in the labour market will further drive the recovery,” concluded Mr Doorley.