No dole increase since minimum pay hike

RAISING the minimum wage did not lead to a rise in unemployment, a new study has revealed.

Critics warned hiking the rate by 50c an hour to €9.15 would cost jobs, but, while the number of hours employees worked fell marginally, this was caused by more parttime workers joining the workforce, the research, released yesterday, found.

In fact, the number of jobless people has fallen sharply by more than 40,000 since the wage increase in January 2016. ‘While the research did find that there was a reduction in the average number of hours worked by minimum-wage employees, the evidence suggests this was driven by an increase in part-time workers joining the labour market following the wage increase,’ said the joint study by the Economic and Social Research Institute and the Low Pay Commission.

ESRI research professor Seamus McGuinness said: ‘The results indicate that at least some of the reduction in the average hours of minimum wage workers may be due to more part-time workers being drawn into the market by the higher minimum wage.

‘Our analysis revealed no negative employment effects because of the 2016 increase. There is little evidence that the 2016 increase in the national minimum wage rate had any immediate adverse impacts on low-paid Irish workers.’

The unemployment rate has fallen sharply since the wage increase, from 8.6% (186,700) in January 2016, to 6.1% (144,400) currently, Central Statistics Office figures show.