Fianna Fáil General Election candidate for Galway West Cllr. Mary Hoade has expressed serious concern about stagnant employment figures among women. The latest CSO figures reveal that there has been no improvement in employment rates for women in the last seven months.
Cllr. Hoade explained, “I am extremely worried about the fact that female employment levels have now tapered off. Over the past seven months we have seen the number of men getting jobs increase but women do not appear to be getting the same opportunities. Unless action is taken to address this, women are in danger of being left behind by this Government.
“Galway county has the 4
th
highest unemployment rate in the country at 10.5% compared to the national figure of 9.4% so there is still a long way to go before we get back to pre-crisis levels. The fact that we have seen a monthly decrease in unemployment is welcome, but I have serious concerns about the stagnation in the number of women going back to work.
“This Government has done very little to address the barriers to employment, which many women face. Childcare costs here are the highest in Europe and in many cases make it economically unviable to women to return to work after starting a family. There is also a need to ensure that women are given the same upskilling and education opportunities so that they can break into evolving growth areas like IT and technology”.
