Half redundant workers may not have worked again

Chairman of the Londonderry Trades Council Liam Gallagher made the comments in reaction to the Sentinel's revelation that over the past three years senior officials in the Department of Employment and Learning have corresponded with just one organisation specifically to deal with the topic of unemployment or investment here.

This was in March 2008 when jobs boss Sir Reg Empey authorised his private secretary to rebuff a request from the Londonderry Local Strategy Partnership to intervene to help secure 35 per cent match funding for a number of projects in the city.

But the Sentinel found that DEL has no record of any other meetings or correspondence in the Londonderry area specifically on the topic of unemployment or investment. This was in spite of spiralling job losses in the area which has the highest unemployment rate in Northern Ireland.

Now Mr Gallagher has suggested 50 per cent of manufacturing workers made redundant in the North West over the past ten years have never worked again.

He told the Sentinel: "It would be interesting to establish the number of workers who managed to gain employment after losing their jobs in the manufacturing sector in the last 10 years in the North West."

He said the local trade union movement believes that over 50 per cent of them may never have worked again and that half of them have joined the 24,000 people listed as economically inactive here.

He said: "Of those who did gain employment they did so on part time or fixed term contract basis with many of them working for just above the minimum wage to augment a partner's wage or using their redundancy to buy a taxi.

"DEL are paying lip service to the problem and many of their policies can go nowhere because of the Department of Finance and Personnel (DfP) requirement to link training and employment measures to consultants, private training organisations and private funding contained within the 23 public sector agreements listed in the Programme for Government."

The jobs ministry has defended its record on tackling the higher levels of unemployment in the North West.

A spokesperson pointed out initiatives and services it has provided over the past three years to help people get back to work in Londonderry.

"The Department for Employment and Learning has a wide range of services and programmes available to assist individuals in the Derry area to move towards and into work, such as New Deal / Steps to Work, Local Employment Intermediary Service (LEMIS - available in Belfast, Londonderry and Strabane), Disability Employment Programmes including Pathways to Work, and Bridge to Employment," the spokesperson stated.

"The Department also has specific provision to assist young people such as our Training for Success programme, and runs an all-age apprenticeship programme, ApprenticeshipsNI.

2There is also a wide range of provision to assist individuals to up-skill, including management and leadership training.

"Within Jobs and Benefits Offices, our staff provide a work-focussed Adviser service.

"The Department also has a Careers Service which is located in Richmond Chambers in Derry and is available to anyone who wishes to obtain careers advice.

"Officials from this department are engaged with local representatives and communities through the Local Strategy Partnership, the LEMIS Stakeholders' Forum, Workforce Development Forum and Neighbourhood Renewal groups," the spokesperson added.