Job losses down 20% on last year but dole queues still increasing

THERE were 20% fewer job losses in the first six months of this year than in the corresponding period last year, according to figures from the Government.

The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment’s actual redundancy figures show there were 5,339 job losses in June. That brought the total for the first six months of the year to 33,876. The corresponding figure for 2009 was 42,323.

Separately, Central Statistics Office (CSO) figures show that, in spite of a 9% increase in the total number of the country’s dole claimants over the last 12 months, the numbers of non-nationals on the Live Register has actually decreased by almost 2% over the period.

According to the CSO, at the end of last month there were 374,037 Irish nationals and 78,845 non-Irishnationals on the register. That represented increases of 3.9% and 1% respectively on the previous month.

However, when comparing June 2010 when the same month last year, the CSO figures show that while the number of Irish dole claimants has increased by 11.6%, the number of non-Irish claimants has decreased by 1.8%. That means that the latter group now accounts for 17.4% of all people on the Live Register. Estimates from the Quarterly National Household Survey for January to March 2010 show that non-nationals represented an estimated 13.5% of all persons in the labour force aged between 17 and 64 years. The CSO statistics do not offer explanations as to why fluctuations occur so it is unclear whether, in light of the challenging economic circumstances, many non-nationals decided either to return home or to move to another European country.

The figures emerged in supplementary documents issued following the publication of the Live Register totals published by the CSO earlier this week.

The new figures show that all the counties in the country saw increases in their dole claimants over the last month.

The biggest increase was 6% in Tipperary north. The smallest was 0.7% in Kerry.

On a year-on-year basis, between June 2009 and June 2010, the number of dole claimants has increased from 415,462 to 452,882, an increase of 37,420. According to the CSO, the largest increase was in the south-east region at 10.8%. The smallest increase was in the west at 6.7%.