Sharp rise in non-Irish joining the dole queue

THE number of foreign nationals claiming unemployment benefit has increased by almost 100% over the past 12 months.

New figures from the Central Statistics Office show there has been a sharp rise in the number of non-Irish nationals on the live register in the past year.

More than 41,200 foreign nationals are now on the live register — an increase of 92%.

In particular, there has been a dramatic rise in the number of citizens claiming jobless allowances from the 10 new EU accession states, which consist mostly of the Baltic republics and other east European countries.

The number of workers from countries which include Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and the Czech Republic on the live register has trebled within the space of the past 12 months.

Almost 19,400 people from these countries are now claiming unemployment benefit compared to just over 6,300 at the same time last year.

The number of all foreign nationals recorded on the live register in September accounts for 17.2% of the total.

In September 2007, just 21,457 non-Irish nationals were in receipt of unemployment benefit, representing 13.4% of all claimants.

Although the number of Irish citizens claiming jobseekers’ benefits has also risen over the same period due to the economic downturn, the rate of increase has been less severe.

Just over 199,000 Irish nationals are now on the live register compared to 139,000 a year ago — an increase of 43.2%.

Overall, almost an extra 80,000 people are now signing on compared to a year ago with the live register currently standing at 240,217 — up almost 50% on the year.

The live register figures, however, recorded a decrease of almost 3% in September over the previous month due to the traditional “back to school” season with students signing off the dole.

While the live register is not an accurate measure of unemployment as it also includes part-time, seasonal and casual workers entitled to claim jobseekers’ benefit or allowance, it nevertheless provides reliable information on the state of the labour market.

The latest official unemployment rate for the Republic is 6.3% in September — up from 6.1% the previous month.

Separate figures published by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment earlier this week revealed that more than 4,000 workers were officially made redundant last month.

Fine Gael’s spokesperson on immigration and integration, Denis Naughten, said the latest figures highlighted the dire state of the economy and the faster rate of increase among non-Irish people seeking unemployment assistance and benefit also underlined the need for extra language supports as an aid to help them finding work.

According to a recent ESRI report, unemployment levels among non-Irish nationals is considerably higher, with black immigrants nine times more likely to be unemployed than Irish nationals.

“As the economy falters, some economic migrants will return home but we have many who have made Ireland their home and language is obviously a barrier.

“It is the Government’s job to remove these barriers to employment,” said Mr Naughten.

On a regional basis, the largest increase in numbers on the live register was in the mid-east, which covers Wicklow, Kildare and Meath and were up 64% over the past 12 months.

The lowest increase was in Dublin where the numbers claiming unemployment benefit rose by 40%.