ABSTRACT

This chapter reviews the main developments in the Irish labour market to establish the context for the analysis of the evolution and impact of active labour market policy. It provides a brief overview of population and employment trends, including changes in labour force participation rates, and in sectoral and occupational structures over the period. Ireland has suffered from mass unemployment since the early 1980s, and as the unemployment crisis deepened over time, youth unemployment and long-term unemployment grew to particularly serious proportions. The chapter discusses long-term unemployment and youth unemployment. Ireland suffers from an exceptionally high level of long-term unemployment: the proportion of the unemployed who have been out to work for a year or more is one of the highest in the European Union. Both the risk of unemployment and the incidence of long-term unemployment is thus heavily concentrated toward the lower end of the social class hierarchy.