Future Jobs Ireland
Future Jobs Ireland seeks to address the future needs of businesses and people
Future Jobs Ireland seeks to address the future needs of businesses and people
CIPD Ireland has welcomed the government’s launch of Future Jobs Ireland 2019: Preparing Now for Tomorrow’s Economy, a new whole-of-Government framework for the next phase of Ireland’s economic development.
Future Jobs Ireland sets out how the country can respond to future risks and the Government’s ambitions for a sustainable economy. From a people management perspective, it incorporates ambitions around flexible and remote working, career advice, upskilling and lifelong learning, incentivising return to work and care facilities, the responsiveness of the education and training system, as well as improved innovation, productivity and leadership capability. These are central to enhancing our workforce and improving our workplaces.
The framework examines the future needs of businesses and workers under five key pillars:
At the launch, An Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar TD, said: 'People have worked hard over the last eight years and should be proud of how far they have taken our country. But there is no room for complacency…. We want Irish people to benefit from the changes already happening in the world of technology, artificial intelligence and robotics, and the move to a low-carbon economy.'
'I want Ireland to be a country that works to live, not lives to work. Businesses need to consider new ways of attracting and retaining talent through remote and flexible working options: women as well as men can get the job done. We need to see lifelong learning as the norm so we are adaptable to new technology and sectors. And, today we are announcing that we have committed to doubling our Lifelong Learning rate to 18% by 2025.'
The framework recognises that society is always ‘on’, and connectivity and greater accessibility is changing the way people work. This comes with negatives and positives, which we have seen in our CIPD Ireland 2019 research on the use of smartphones.
The launch acknowledged that flexible working and lifelong learning are not only good for businesses and employers, they can be good for the wellbeing of employees.
The Future Jobs Ireland 2019 will include initiatives such as:
It also seeks to achieve greater productivity in Irish-owned and SME sectors, recognising the need to support the growth of indigenous business, including investment funding to scale up Irish businesses and improving their leadership and management capabilities. For 2019, increasing innovation and supporting technological change will be driven by increasing investment in Research and Development.
Each of the five pillars of Future Jobs Ireland has high level targets for 2025. Key deliverables for 2019 under each pillar include:
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