Forecast that NI jobless total will reach 100k now looks optimistic, says Dodds

By David Young, PA

A prediction that jobless numbers in Northern Ireland will rise to 100,000 by the end of the year now looks like an optimistic forecast, the economy minister has warned.

Diane Dodds said unemployment figures are likely to soar even higher if further Covid-19 restrictions are introduced.

Mrs Dodds also expressed concern that the Stormont executive’s message around the need to comply with Covid-19 rules and guidance was “not cutting through” and that “complacency” had set in among some people.

The minister said modelling carried out by her department in the summer forecasting a 100,000 claimant count by the end of 2020 was based on a premise of no new restrictions being introduced.

With new measures having come into effect since then, and more predicted in the months ahead, the DUP minister said Northern Ireland was facing tens of thousands of job losses in the months ahead.

The most recently published claimant count stood at around 63,000, which is more than double the number in February, prior to the first lockdown.

The end of the furlough scheme in October is predicted to trigger a wave of redundancies across the region.

“Remember in February this year we were all patting ourselves on the back that we had one of the lowest unemployment rates in the whole of the United Kingdom, maybe even the lowest in the whole of the United Kingdom, and (now) we could see on employment rise to over 100,000,” said the minister.

“That modelling was actually predicated on there being no tightening of restrictions.

“So it probably now looks at the optimistic end of the scale.”

She added: “The consequences of further restrictions will be job losses and a spike in unemployment.”

During a media briefing on the current state of the economy, the minister stressed the needed for “balanced” decisions on further restrictions that considered both health and economic impacts.

She reiterated her view that the region could not afford to absorb the impact of another lockdown without further assistance from the Treasury.

“We simply as an executive do not have the financial firepower to support businesses in Northern Ireland in the way that we would have done through schemes that were introduced at a national level earlier in the year,” she said.

On top of major Government interventions such as the furlough scheme, Mrs Dodds’ department has introduced of a series of additional Stormont-funded support schemes for impacted businesses during the health crisis.

The latest, launched this week, was a business and financial planning grant scheme and a business and financial support programme for the tourism industry.

The minister expressed doubt that the Treasury will provide the level of assistance that would be required to sustain another lockdown.

“I think we would need to see interventions on the scale that we saw last March,” she said.

“I don’t know that those kinds of interventions are going to become available.”

Asked about the potential alternatives to a lockdown, the minister said greater public compliance with simple hygiene and infection control measures, such as the wearing of face coverings, was required.

“I think that one of the things that we really have to do is I just genuinely think that our message is not cutting through,” she said.

“I genuinely think that.

“I think that we need to have a crafted message, a simple message that people understand.

“And you know people need to know that if actually by doing the simple things, the social distancing, the washing your hands, the wearing the mask, the simple things, that’s the way that we will help our health prospects and help our hospitals to cope in very, very challenging circumstances.

“But it’s also the way we will help the economy to stay open.”