Live Register falls but 44% jobless are long-term unemployed

The number of people on the Live Register fell by 2,000 but 44.2% of those out of work are long-term unemployed — sparking fresh criticism of the Government’s jobs initiative.

The latest data from the CSO shows a seasonally adjusted figure of 434,400 people signing on in August, meaning a standardised unemployment rate of 14.7%.

While the figure for people signing on the Live Register does include part-time, seasonal, and casual workers, 44.2% have been signing on long term — an increase from 40.8% in Aug 2011 and up from 24.7% in Feb 2010.

The Irish Small and Medium Enterprises Association (ISME) said the latest Live Register figures were “awful” and questioned whether the Government’s jobs initiative had succeeded in turning around the rate of job losses.

ISME chief executive Mark Fielding said: “Educational and training programmes, internship schemes and other such initiatives have a limited capacity to get people back into the workforce.

“The best and most efficient way to create and protect employment is to reduce state-inflicted costs, which will generate confidence in business, increase consumer spending, which in turn will lead to job creation.”

Claiming that the Government’s efforts to date on job creation had been “feeble, under-ambitious and uninspired, with little being achieved”, Mr Fielding said cost competitiveness, inavailability of credit and the “black economy” are issues that need to be urgently addressed.

“While the Government is concerning itself with appeasing the public sector to keep them onside, the effort to tackle unemployment has run out of steam,” he said.

“The insubstantial jobs initiative, introduced earlier this year, is now a distant memory and is not working. Consequently, the numbers of long-term unemployed continues to grow, creating a structural problem that will blight generations to come.”

The CSO figures also showed that in July 59,246 people were availing of activation programmes targeted primarily at the long-term unemployed.

That was an increase of 16.1% on the same time last year, although down slightly on the June figure.

Other figures published by the CSO yesterday showed falls in gross national product, gross national disposable income, personal expenditure, and government expenditure.

* www.cso.ie