Almost 700 new jobs announced in the last 24 hours – Corcoran Kennedy

Fine Gael TD for Laois/Offaly and Chairperson of the Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Marcella Corcoran Kennedy, has today (Thursday) welcomed the news that 690 new jobs have been announced in three locations over the past twenty four hours.

“Over the course of the past twenty four hours:

·          150 jobs have been announced at West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc in Waterford

·          400 jobs at Car Trawler in Dublin

·          140 jobs in Limerick with Optel Vision

“This news comes alongside another drop in the Live Register figures announced yesterday which confirmed that the number of people signing on has dropped by 9.5% since the launch of the Government’s Action Plan for Jobs. The overall unemployment rate now stands at 11.1%, down from the 2012 peak of 15.1%.

“It is extremely encouraging to see that jobs are being created for our highly skilled workforce. The jobs created range from manufacturing to engineering, finance, data science, as well as sales and customer operations.

“I am also pleased to see that these jobs are being created for regions that have been severely impacted by the economic downturn and I look forward to the implementation of the Government’s new Regional Enterprise Strategy which will prioritise the midlands as the first area to benefit.

“The indicators at present are all positive; more people are working and jobs are being created but there are still 370,000 people on the Live Register and we need to get these people back to work.

“ Employment is at its highest level since 2009 and we are firmly on track to help create 100,000 jobs by 2016. The growth in the economy has been no accident; it is a direct result of decisions made by this Government and we are committed to continuing on the course of providing jobs.”