Written Ministerial Statement

The content of this written ministerial statement is as received at the time from the Minister. It has not been subject to the official reporting (Hansard) process.

Office of the First Minister and deputy First Minister- Executive's Economy and Jobs Initiative

Download this statement as a PDF (1.83 mb)

Published at 12.30 pm on  Thursday 8 November 2012

Mr P Robinson (The First Minister) and Mr M McGuinness (The deputy First Minister): We wish to make a Statement to the Assembly about a new initiative to boost jobs and the economy. When the Executive published its Programme for Government and Economic Strategy in March, we set out how we planned to grow the economy and tackle disadvantage.

Departments across the Executive are making significant progress in implementing their Programme for Government and Economic Strategy commitments. This activity will improve the competitiveness of the local economy and deliver higher levels of sustainable growth and employment.

However, we recognised that our Economic Strategy needed to be flexible. Low growth in our key markets is continuing to dampen our economic recovery and we have therefore concluded it is necessary to take further action to support the local labour market.

We have made resources available over the remainder of this budget period to implement a range of additional short-term measures and we have supplemented this activity by diverting further resources to projects which will boost employment in the construction sector in the short-term. The measures within this Economy and Jobs Initiative are set out in the attached paper.

We remain committed to growing a sustainable economy and tackling disadvantage. We will take a close interest in seeing that these measures are effectively delivered alongside the existing Programme for Government and Economic Strategy targets. We are also continuing to examine other ideas that may help us deliver our goals.