Figures released by the CSO this morning show that 2,900 people were taken off the Live Register during December 2017, reducing the seasonally adjusted total to 241,300.
The number of persons on the Live Register in December 2017 is at the lowest number recorded since August 2008.
During 2017, a total of 40,234 people signed off the Live Register.
Most people (58.6% or 138,350) on the Live Register were short-term claimants, compared to 97,918 long-term claimants.
There were 51,159 casual and part-time workers on the Live Register in December 2017, which represents 21.7% of the total Live Register. This compares with 59,908 casual and part-time workers on the Live Register one year earlier, which also represented 21.7% of the total Live Register.
In the year to December 2017 the number of persons aged 25 and over on the Live Register decreased by 34,624 (-14.1%), and the number of persons aged under 25 decreased by 5,610 (-18.5%).
There were 15,293 new registrants on the Live Register in December 2017, consisting of 7,461 Jobseeker’s Allowance (JA) claims, 7,200 Jobseekers Benefit (JB) claims and 632 “Other Registrants”. Males accounted for 53.5% (8,177) and females 46.5% (7,116) of all new registrants. JA claims represented 48.8% of all new registrations, while JB claims and “Other Registrants” represented 47.1% and 4.1% respectively.
Craft and related (17.6%) remained the largest occupational group1 on the Live Register in December, despite the fact that the number in the group fell over the year by 8,607 (-17.1%) to 41,622. This was also largest annual percentage decrease followed by the Sales group which decreased 16.9%.
In November the CSO revealed that the rate of unemployment hit 6%, a figure which has not been seen since June 2008 – having previously been as high as 15.2% at the height of the recession in January 2012.
These figures show that Ireland’s rate of unemployment is well below the Euro zone average of 8.9%.
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