In a nutshell, if the government stops strangling the life out of the economy there may be opportunities for job creation. Unfortunately, consecutive governments have continued to increase the burden of government with single-minded determination and there’s no indication that’s going to change.
The size of government as a share of GDP climbed through the 19th and 20th centuries, from 5-10 per cent in the 1870s to the 35-50 per cent norm by 2000. The climb was driven party by the financing of two world wars but also by a changing perception of the role of the state in the provision of social services. However, some high-spending countries made huge cuts from the early 1990s onwards and still retained their excellent performance. Between 1992 and 2007, Sweden, Norway and Canada all reduced public spending by some 15 per cent of GDP without any serious consequences to their human development.
Tanzi concludes that “public spending of, say, around 35 per cent of GDP should be sufficient” for a government “to satisfy all the genuine objectives that realistically can be expected”. “If public spending is efficient and well-focused”, an even lower percentage should be possible. That is quite encouraging because even the higher level of spending, 35 per cent, should be within the taxable capacity of most modern democracies.
Vito Tanzi (Former IMF economist)

“Ireland is no longer a low Government expenditure economy compared with public spending as a % of GNP (gross national product) relative to the Eurozone average (% of GDP) until 2007, when both were c. 44%. The brokers say that since the onset of the economic crisis, government spending has shot up to 60% of GNP compared to 50% of GDP (gross domestic product) for the Eurozone.”
Goodbody Stockbrokers

salary expectations are only there cos people need to be able to see money in there packets at the end of the week, no one wants to work just to pay taxes, USC etc. If small businesses cant offer wages that people want they need to complain to government not be saying people are greedy cos most want a job to make life better not just work for the sake of it and not see anything at the end of the week, using the whole oh cut dole crap wont drive people to low paid jobs it will just drive more people to poverty. The person above says were all responsible for the mess the country is in…..to a degree we did vote in the last shower and current shower of lying toads but there was plenty people during the boom that just worked and lived within the means

It’s every ones fault the country is the way it is…every ones …everyone got greedy shops butchers pubs petrol every thing went up and we let it …you can buy Irish cheese in Spain for least than half the cost of it in Ireland…same with Irish meat,fish drink all cheaper than at home but we let it where’s the fighting Irish now (did they sell out)

Excellent news. The line “Costs, employment law, lack of skills and unrealistic salary expectations were also cited by potential employers” is something many of our undergraduates to be should be aware of. I believe lack of skills includes language barriers. When interviewing people, if the candidate speaks a foreign language (Irish doesn’t count) then they’re more than likely to get the job even in SME’s. Students in schools don’t realise this and more should be done to upskill our students.

It’s easy I think
Bring early retirement age down to 55 and let the young do the work

As an employer, really could do with more supports and help in terms of exemptions to make it easier and less costly for early stage businesses to create employment
http://www.voucherpages.ie/