9,000 drop in jobless numbers

THE number of people receiving unemployment benefit and assistance has fallen by nearly 9,000 in the last 12 months, it emerged yesterday.

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) said that there were 168,509 people on the register last month compared to 177,501 in July last year.

The register includes those receiving unemployment benefit and unemployment assistance, which can cover part-time, seasonal and casual workers.

However, the Green Party said it was worrying the numbers on the live register had increased by 2,600 on the previous month of June when the figures were seasonally adjusted.

“Taken together with rising oil prices, decreasing manufacturing output and lessening corporation tax returns there are too many signs of the Irish economy going in a wrong direction for the Government to ignore,” said Finance spokesman Dan Boyle TD.

But the CSO said its quarterly household survey was a better measure of the unemployment rate. It currently stands at 4.3%, or around 84,500, compared to 5.4% six years ago.

Around 20,000 casual workers were estimated to be among the 168,000 on the register last month.

There were around 33,000 people aged under 25 on the live register and 135,000 over 25.

The largest percentage increases were in Offaly, where the numbers signing on the live register increased by 9% and in Cavan, where sign-ons increased by 7.6%. The smallest increases were in Tipperary South (2.2%) and in Kerry (4.1%).

Last week, Social and Family Affairs Minister Seamus Brennan yesterday questioned why 150,000 Irish people were still on the live register while a similar number of immigrants found work here this year.

The CSO’s 2002 census found there were 88 unemployment blackspots in urban and rural areas around the country, with unemployment rates in excess of 24%.

The Irish National Organisation for the Unemployed (INOU) said it was concerned that the live register figures show the highest two-month rise in the unadjusted figure for two years. “Numbers signing on have increased by 17,700 in June and July,” said general secretary Eric Conroy.

Last week, the INOU noted that there were nearly 25,000 redundancies last year, the highest in the last 20 years.