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This report examines training interventions provided in 2014 by the Local and Community Development Programme (LCDP), now known as the Social Inclusion and Community Activation Programme (SICAP). The study's five key objectives are to: (1) examine the extent to which training provision delivered under LCDP/SICAP varies across programme areas and the extent of accreditation; (2) estimate how training expenditure and the duration of training courses are distributed across programme types; (3) analyse how the distribution of provision relates to the SICAP goals; (4) measure the geographical variation in the distribution of provision by population, deprivation index, programme objectives and costs; and (5) assess the extent to which the provision delivered under the programme could and should be subject to evaluation in terms of both individual-level outcomes and community-level impacts.

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Extending working lives is a central element of active ageing policy in Ireland and Europe, and is seen as promoting active lifestyles and sustaining social protection systems in the context of an ageing population. This report argues however, efforts to extend working life must consider the reasons why workers leave employment early. Simply raising the minimum retirement age will not build sustainable jobs. A central element of this picture is the health and working conditions faced by older workers. This project explores the retention of older workers in Ireland, drawing on several sources of data to describe their experience in the Irish labour market. While there is no official age threshold to classify a worker as an older worker, the literature on ageing workforce often focuses on workers aged 55 and over. In Ireland, according to the 2018 Labour Force Survey, there are currently 396,060 workers in this age category, accounting for 18 per cent of the employed population. The project set out to explore the following questions: How do the working conditions and the health of older workers compare to those of younger workers? What types of jobs and working conditions are associated with perceived ability to work longer? Which sectors and occupations are best able to retain older workers? Among those who exit early (aged 55-59 years), what are their reasons for leaving work? Are older workers more vulnerable to fatal injury in the workforce? Are they embedded in sectors prone to injury?

The report has four parts. The first provides context on older workers' position in the Irish labour market using national statistics, and examines how the proportion of older workers in the economy has changed over the last decade, with Ireland's economic recovery. The second part explores the working conditions of older workers using data from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) and the European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS). It questions whether Irish workers over the age of 55 hold sustainable positions in the market, or do they hold precarious or dangerous jobs? Thirdly, the report explores the retention rates of older workers, looking at the industries and occupations that are best able to retain older workers. This section also analyses leavers using this data, exploring the characteristics of those who retire early, and their reasons for retiring early (which are available for those who left work in the last eight years) across occupations and sectors. The final section explores whether, given the over-representation of older workers among workplace fatalities, this is driven by the sectoral distribution of older workers or if they face higher risks within sectors.

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Employment is a crucial issue for people with disabilities because it has a strong bearing on their social inclusion and their economic welfare. For policymakers to help improve the wellbeing of people with disabilities, it is vital to understand the processes that lead to employment entries and exits among people with disabilities, including differences in this respect between those with distinct types of disability. To help address some of these questions, this report draws on data from the Quarterly National Household Survey (QNHS) to examine employment transitions of people with disabilities in Ireland. The QNHS tracks people for up to five calendar quarters and has a large enough sample size to allow an examination of the circumstances of working-age people with disabilities. This means that the data can be used to examine employment-related transitions and the circumstances in which they occur.

The following questions are addressed in this report. Firstly, what is the nature and scale of movement in and out of different labour force statuses (employed, unemployed, inactive) for people with disabilities, compared to the population as a whole? Secondly, how do employment entries differ by individual and family characteristics, such as age, gender, marital status, education and household type? After taking account of these, is there still a difference between people with and without a disability? Finally, how do employment exits differ by job characteristics, such as occupation, sector (public/private and industry), size of workplace, full-time or part-time work as well as individual/family characteristics?

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This report, funded by the Higher Education Authority (HEA), provides an analysis of the future demand for higher education (HE) places in Ireland over the coming two decades. The report considers a range of issues pertinent to HE policy, including: (1) the likely balance between the demand for, and supply of, graduate labour in Ireland up to the year 2030; (2) the implications of HE expansion for social inclusion and educational progression; and (3) the need for structural reform with respect to both HE funding and educational delivery.

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This report provides a comprehensive evaluation of the National Youthreach Programme. Commissioned by the Further Education and Training Authority (SOLAS), the study is part of an agreed schedule of independent evaluations of key Further Education and Training (FET) provision under the Department of Education and Skills-led FET Strategy 2014-2019 Implementation Plan. Established in 1989, the Youthreach programme continues to be the government's primary response to early school leaving by providing second-chance education for young people who leave mainstream second-level school before Leaving Certificate level. Reflecting the multiple challenges (including socio-economic disadvantage and special educational needs) faced by many Youthreach learners and the necessity to capture a broader range of outcomes in assessing programme effectiveness, this study adopts a mixed methods approach combining survey data on centres as well as in-depth interviews with staff and learners. The report emphasises the voice of young people who have disengaged from school by capturing their views about the Youthreach programme.

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This European Migration Network Study aims to investigate the process in place in Ireland for identifying labour and skills shortages by providing an overview of the mechanisms and tools used for that purpose. The role of economic migration from outside the European Economic Area (EEA) in addressing such shortages is examined. The extent to which information on shortages guides labour migration policy is also discussed. This report is based on the Irish contribution to an [European Union] EU-wide European Migration Network (EMN) study on determining labour shortages and the need for labour migration from third countries, i.e. countries outside the EU.

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The term 'contingent employment' generally refers to an employment relationship that is non-permanent. There is a belief that recent years have seen a substantial emergence of contingent employment as a facet of modern labour markets, but there is little work that has documented or measured the incidence of contingent employment in Ireland. This report addresses this deficit by measuring the incidence of contingent employment in Ireland, assessing the extent to which this is changing over time and profiling the individuals most likely to be contingent workers. The report uses three datasets for the analysis: the Quarterly National Household Survey (QNHS), the EU Survey of Income and Living Conditions (EU SILC) and CEDEFOP's European Skills and Jobs Survey (ESJS).

The two principal components of contingent employment in Ireland are employees on temporary contracts and freelancers. The incidence of contingent employment ranged from 8 to 9 per cent of total employment between 1998 and 2005, before increasing to over 10 per cent between 2011 and 2013. It had fallen back towards its pre-recession level by 2016, sitting below the EU average. Therefore, the evidence does not support the view that the incidence of contingent employment has been increasing steadily over time in Ireland.

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The costs of childcare are frequently invoked as a barrier to maternal employment, especially for low-income groups and lone parents. However, there are relatively few systematic analyses of the real costs for families or of how these costs influence employment outcomes for mothers. This study draws on information from the 'Growing up in Ireland' (GUI) Survey to investigate childcare costs for children up to the age of five, with a particular focus on costs at age three before children enter the school system, which is the peak period for participation in non-parental childcare in terms of both the numbers of children and hours of childcare. Using data from the infant cohort of the GUI survey, this report has two main aims. Firstly to examine in detail the costs of pre-school and after-school childcare to parents in Ireland; and secondly to investigate how childcare costs impact on mothers' hours of paid work.

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This study uses a new measure of minimum wage employment in Ireland, taken from the Quarterly National Household Survey (QNHS), to assess the degree to which individuals in receipt of the national minimum wage (NMW) transition in and out of NMW employment over a period of three quarters in 2016 and 2017. We do so using longitudinal data on 1,514 employees who were in receipt of the NMW in at least one of three consecutive quarters. Consistent with much of the international evidence, we find that minimum wage employment often acts as a stepping stone to higher paid work. Of the 1,514 employees, 18 per cent remained on the minimum wage for all three quarters compared to approximately 30 per cent who transitioned from minimum wage to higher paid employment. The results also show that exits from NMW status to higher waged employment are achieved primarily through within-employer wage progression rather than between employer job change. Over 90 per cent of employees who transition to higher paid employment do not change occupation or employer.

Our multivariate analysis shows that Irish nationals, older workers, those with higher levels of education, full-time employees and those on permanent contracts are more likely to exit minimum wage employment to higher paid employment compared to non-nationals, younger persons, those with lower educational attainment, part-time workers and those on temporary contracts. There is a higher transition rate to unemployment or inactivity among minimum wage employees compared to higher paid employees. Minimum wage workers are 10 percentage points more likely to become unemployed or inactive compared to non-minimum wage workers in the highest income decile. Even after controlling for education, gender, contract type (permanent/temporary), working arrangements (part-time/full-time), age and nationality, minimum wage workers are four percentage points more likely to transition to unemployment or inactivity than higher paid workers.

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The recent global economic crisis has brought renewed attention to the difficulties faced by young people in securing stable employment. In addition, rising post-school educational participation has raised new challenges around ensuring a more seamless transition from one stage to the next. Thus post-school transitions have assumed an increasing importance in the policy agenda. This report presents the findings of the 'Leaving School in Ireland' study which collected detailed information on post-school pathways and experiences thus allowing the authors to link school experiences to post-school outcomes in the Irish context. In addition, this study provides new evidence on how young people experience the transition from second-level education to further/higher education and the labour market.

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