Plea to curb unemployment among young

Action must be taken to curb the rising levels of unemployment among young people, it was warned today.

The Irish National Organisation for the Unemployed (INOU) said it was concerned with the high and rising levels of unemployment among those under 25-years.

“Society must examine why such high numbers of our youth are ending up in unemployment after leaving education,” Eric Conroy, general secretary of the INOU, said.

“We in the INOU are calling for labour market measures to reduce youth unemployment. Furthermore we should explore the need for gender-specific proposals to counteract the particular rise in male youth joblessness.”

New figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) showed the number of people on the Live Register in November climbed to 157,700 – an increase of 1,100 on the previous month.

Mr Conroy said there were 31,200 people under-25 on the seasonally adjusted Live Register – which was the highest since September 2004.

The INOU said the male ratio of 58.7% was the highest in recent years.

Mr Conroy said the figures were backed up by the release of the Quarterly National Household Survey (QNHS), which measures unemployment, earlier this week.

He said youth unemployment had increased significantly during the quarter to 9.7% – twice the national average.

The CSO has said the Live Register is not designed to measure unemployment - it includes part-time workers, season and casual workers entitled to claim unemployment assistance.

The standard unemployment rate during last month was 4.3% – and the QNHS figures for the three-months to August 2005 showed there were around 88,600 people unemployed.