Unemployment hits 17-year high of 299,000

ANY hopes that the St Patrick’s festival week might signal some symbolic green shoots in the economy have been dashed with new figures that show unemployment in Ireland has hit its highest rate in 17 years.

The latest Quarterly National Household Survey report by the Central Statistics Office shows a worsening position in the labour market, with the jobless rate climbing sharply to 14.7% at the end of 2010 — the highest level since 1994.

A total of 299,000 were unemployed at the end of last year, up 31,600 over the previous 12 months.

Worryingly, the normal reduction in the number of people out of work in the run-up to Christmas due to seasonal factors did not occur in the final quarter of 2010.

As a result, the unemployment rate jumped by 1% alone between October and December.

Similar concern will also be raised over the fact that the number of long-term unemployed (people out of work for over 12 months) now account for over half of the jobless figures.

The number of people classified as long-term unemployed rose by 64,800 during 2010 to 153,900 — 51.5% of total unemployment. The number of people in work also declined by 3.4% last year by 64,500 to 1,823,200.

The CSO — which admitted the jobless figures were worse than expected — has raised its estimate of the current unemployment rate from 13.5% contained in February’s Live Register figures to 14.6%.

The unemployment rate here is also well in excess of the EU average which was 9.3% at the end of the third quarter of 2010.

Workers aged between 20 and 34 accounted for the vast majority of the total fall in employment last year.

The percentage of the adult population aged 15-64 in employment fell to 59.4% in 2010 — the first time the employment rate fell below 60% since 1998 after reaching highs of 77% during the peak of the economic boom in 2006.

Fewer than half of all young people aged 20-24 are in employment while one in five of all adults with a job are engaged in part-time work.

The CSO figures also reveal that the number of foreign nationals working in Ireland fell by 35,200 or almost 14% during 2010 with a reduction in the number working in catering and construction down sharply.

It meant there were 220,000 foreign nationals still at work here at the end of 2010 — down from a high of 345,800 four years ago.

The construction industry continued to suffer last year with over 26,800 less jobs in the sector, while there was a net loss of 8,800 jobs in the financial services, insurance and real estate sector.

Overall, the size of the Irish labour force also shrunk by 1.5% last year — down 33,000 to just over 2.1 million.

Separately, the CSO released data to show that average weekly earnings fell by almost 2.5% last year to €699.46.

Reacting to the figures, small business representative body, ISME called on the Government to prioritise jobs with particular emphasis on tackling long-term unemployment.

ISME chief executive, Mark Fielding, said Government policy should focus on cost competitiveness with a concentrated effort on addressing local authority charges, as well as energy, rent and transport costs.

Mr Fielding also called on the Government to reform sectoral wage agreements and examine the lack of available bank credit. “It is imperative that every effort is made to address this issues to prevent a generation of joblessness, with emigration the only alternative.”