Ireland charts roadmap for full employment in 2018

Ireland on Wednesday charted a roadmap for full employment in 2018, two years earlier than anticipated.

At a special cabinet meeting on jobs, the government agreed to a range of measures to ensure the delivery of three key employment targets ahead of schedule.

"We will work to make 2015 the year in which we secure the recovery by focusing on getting Ireland working," Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny said at a press briefing after the cabinet meeting.

"The number one goal I am setting for this government in 2015 is to build on the progress already made to help create 40,000 new jobs this year," Kenny said.

The additional jobs, when combined with the 80,000 new jobs already created since the launch of the Action Plan for Jobs in 2012, will ensure the country's original target of 100,000 new jobs by 2016 is beaten, according to the government.

With regard to reducing national unemployment rates, the government will ensure unemployment falls below 10 percent this year, ahead of forecasts when it took office in 2011.

The unemployment rate has now fallen to 10.6 percent, down from the crisis peak of 15.1 percent in February 2012, according to official figures.

Kenny said his government's target for achieving full employment has been brought forward by two years from 2020 to 2018.

He said that having 2.1 million people at work was an "ambitious and realistic goal".

"Our goal is that all of the 250,000 jobs that were lost during the recession will be able to be restored and that's why, at the suggestion of both myself and the Tanaiste (Deputy Prime Minister), the cabinet agreed to bring forward plans from 2020 to be implemented by 2018 to achieve full employment," he added. Enditem