Record set as 427,000 on Live Register last month

THERE are fresh fears that the worst of the economic recession may not be over as figures show the number of people on the Live Register reached its highest-ever level in December.

Data from the Central Statistics Office show that the seasonally adjusted Live Register rose by 3,300 last month to reach 426,700.

The unadjusted December figure, which does not take seasonal factors into account, was up by 10,090.

Overall, the number of people on the Live Register, which is not a strict measure of unemployment as it includes some casual and part-time workers, has risen by more than 46% in the past 12 months.

The official unemployment rate also rose slightly to 12.5%, although many economists believe it will rise to as much as 14%.

Commenting on yesterday’s figures, most analysts stressed that the rate at which people were losing their jobs was slowing down and stabilising.

Separate figures from the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, show that there were 77,000 notified redundancies during 2009 – an annual increase of almost 90%.

A total of 4,121 were officially laid off last month, a 28% increase on December 2008, although last month’s figures were less that those recorded earlier in the year.

Labour leader, Eamon Gilmore said the latest CSO figures cast serious doubts about claims made by the Taoiseach, Brian Cowen and other ministers that the recession had bottomed out.

“These are by far the worst December Live Register figures ever recorded. There are now 142,000 more out of work than in December 2008, and 269,000 more than at the time of the general election in 2007,” he said.

Mr Gilmore predicted that more people would join dole queues over the coming months despite an increase in emigration for the first time since the 1980s.

Fine Gael employment spokesman, Leo Varadkar, said the record number meant Ireland was a long way from turning the corner. He criticised the Government for failing to introduce measures to help create and retain jobs. “The Government has become obsessed with balancing the books and the banks, and has done nothing about the collapse of the real economy and the ongoing haemorrhage of jobs.”

Meanwhile, EU figures show that the overall unemployment rate across the 27 member states has reached its highest level in more than a decade. The jobless rate rose to 9.5% in November – up 2% since the same month in 2008, and the highest level since it was first calculated in 2000.

Unemployment rates in individual states ranged from 3.9% in the Netherlands up to 22.3% in Latvia. Unemployment in Ireland was measured at 12.9% – the sixth highest rate in the EU.

All EU countries recorded a rising number of people out of work over the past year with the Baltic states – Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia – experiencing the most rapid increase in rates.

The unemployment rate among people under 25 rose to 21.4% last November compared to 16.6% in the same month in 2008. In Ireland, the rate was 28.7%, the fourth highest in the EU.

The general EU unemployment rate of 9.5% compares to 10% in the US and 5.2% in Japan.