Unemployment rate jumps to 16.5% with more than a third of young people receiving unemployment payments

34% for persons aged 15 to 24 years are now unemployed.

Ireland's unemployment rate has jumped to 16.5% as almost 300,000 are now in receipt of Covid-19 related unemployment payments.

The Central Statistics Office said that when the number of people receiving Pandemic Unemployment Payment at the end of March are taken away, Ireland's unemployment rate is 5.4% up from 4.8% in February 2020.