With an unemployment rate sitting at 4.4 per cent, one could say that Ireland’s employment kimono is embracing all within its fabric folds.

Pressing the jargon key allows us to open the kimono. Behold, all is not as it seems within the Irish jobs market.

Employment apartheid has creeped in. On one side of the job coin are industries offering jobs that are only suitable for a particular worker type. The work of a few with puffed-up job titles aligned with the air of self-importance on the societal impart of their work.

The flip side has industries offering the vanilla-type jobs ranging from office work to hospitality and retail. The work of the masses.

Within this area, the quality of the jobs and the terms of employment currently on offer are poor. The career route within an industry has been paved over. Built on it are jobs that offer short working hours, elastic duties and a bias towards the single-use worker.

Adding to the job pap are the various Government-sponsored employment schemes. These legally allow employers to obtain workers without the nuisance factor of offering a long-term employment commitment.

An office maxim tells a worker that a wage is a bribe given by your employer to forget your dreams, and that’s never been more true.

The worker could accommodate this State if the job offered had a foundation built on genuine work, long-term employment and an opportunity to input a person’s skills and talent into the development of the business. It appears that the employment kimono is hiding more than a few frayed stitches.

John Tierney

Ashtown Fews, Co Waterford