Arguments for a post-pandemic Public Employment Eco System in Ireland

The past was a different country, and the future will be different too. The Covid-19 pandemic has brought in its wake massive unemployment, shifting attention away from pre-pandemic labour market challenges. More labour market turbulence can be expected in the context of the fourth industrial revolution, digitalisation and automation, as well as climate-change-related transitions. In this context of such acute uncertainty, flexible, adaptable public employment institutions are a core requirement. Concerned with institution building, this paper explores how to maximise synergies in existing Public Employment Services (PES) while developing an ecosystem that can utilise all other available resources across public, private and not-for-profit national and local institutions. The political context for policy and institutional reform is a centralised, relatively small and open state which demonstrates some capacity to learn from previous crises and institutional reforms to tackle unemployment. The concept of a Strategic Action Field is used to deepen our understanding of the structure and agency dynamics underlying PES reform in the context of quasi-markets. A more systematic approach to institutional reform is needed that values a diversity of actors – this is visualised as a Public Employment Eco System (PEES) embedded in processes of network governance and collaborative innovation.