It makes good sense to try and prevent a situation where people keep registering for work that does not exist, or for which there are only a few vacancies, in order to keep receiving unemployment benefit. However, care has to be taken not go give the impression that the ultimate objective is to bring down the jobless figure at all costs.
With unemployment rising month after month and with the creation of new job opportunities in the country not matching demand, the government is clearly finding itself under increasing pressure to see how it can stem the upward trend.
It is only natural that it attempts to strike at those who are only interested in abusing the system. It plans to do this through a new employment system under which it is undertaking to top up the salary of low-income earners in a bid to make work pay. It has also decided to start funding the cost of maternity leave through a rise in social security contributions paid by employers for their workers.
As it happens, only a day or so before the announcement of the new employment policy was made, the General Workers’ Union made a case for the minimum wage and the minimum pension to be raised through a one-off financial intervention beyond the cost-of-living wage adjustment.
It looks as if the union was privy to what the administration had intended to do, although there has been no mention as yet of any plan to top up the minimum pension.
No-one is likely to go against any administration wanting to tackle the anomalous situation in the current system when, as it has just been revealed, almost half the number of people registering for work are looking for jobs that do not exist. Raising the minimum wage may well help encourage more people to rejoin the labour market but the problem is of course deeper than that because of the job-offer/demand mismatch.
The situation has not evolved overnight but with the elections for members of the European Parliament now round the corner, the government obviously decided it is just the right time to be seen to be doing something about it.
The launching of the employment policy at this time is therefore no coincidence, just as it is no coincidence that the government had planned to bring down the energy tariffs before the European Parliament elections.
Even so, it is good policy to prevent abuse in the registration for employment. Taking measures to make work pay is laudable, though it remains to be seen if the top-up the government has in mind will be considered sufficient incentive to bring about a shift in thinking of the unemployed. Any rigid system that will automatically strike people off the unemployment register when they refuse jobs offered to them will not solve the problem either.
It is true that people may simply be unwilling to take any of the jobs on offer. But there may also be people who, for quite reasonable personal circumstances, may be unable to fit in standard jobs. The way to help these and other people find the right places in the job market is through proper guidance and training.
There are other possible complications in the new policy but, since the government will be rolling out the measures over the term of this legislature, there is time for the social partners to go into them in greater detail.