Focus on long-term jobless as economy delivers jobs

Official figures show that the economy is producing lots of jobs, but still struggles to deliver jobs in parts of the country outside Dublin, a leading analyst has said.

Alan McQuaid, chief economist at Merrion Capital, said the CSO’s Quarterly National Household Survey published yesterday was “again very positive”, as 46,900 more people were in work in the first quarter this year than a year earlier.

The CSO figures showed there are now over 1.97m people at work, still short of the record of over 2.2m set in 2007.