CSO figures show lowest fall in employment in two years

The number of people in employment fell by 3.7% or just under 71,000 people during the year to the end of the third quarter of 2010 - the lowest decline in two years.

The number of people languishing in long-term unemployment has doubled over the last year, it emerged today.

Official figures revealed the rate of those out of work for more than a year soared to 6.5% by autumn.

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) said there were 299,000 people unemployed in the third quarter of 2010, a jump of 19,200 over the year.

But while the rate of job losses eased, a staggering 140,400 people had not worked for at least 12 months.

Sinn Féin accused the Government of ruining the State and failing its people.

Enterprise Spokesman Arthur Morgan said: “It is time this Government woke up. The lesson is simple: Banks bailouts don’t create jobs, investment will.

“Budget 2011 was a wasted opportunity.”

Figures showed the number of people in long-term unemployment accounted for 47% of all those out of work after they rose by 69,000.

While the full-time jobs dropped by 73,500, some 2,600 people secured part-time posts.

The country’s unemployment rate of 13.5% was four percentage points higher than the EU-27 average of 9.5%, the CSO added.

Elsewhere, the latest Quarterly National Household Survey revealed that the self-employed fell by 7.3% to 304,500, while the numbers working in the public sector fell by 10,000, just 2.4% down.

The most recent live register showed that 425,002 claimed benefits last month, including part-time and seasonal workers. Emigration was roundly blamed for the third monthly fall in numbers signing on the dole.

Isme, the Irish Small and Medium Enterprises Association, said Government had made little or no effort to address the unemployment crisis.

Chief executive Mark Fielding said: “It is incredible that the Government introduced austerity measures to get the economy back on track, but did little to address our unemployment problem, crucial to future growth.

“The disastrous trend in the long-term unemployed rate, which has more than doubled from 3.2% in the third quarter of 2009 to the current 6.5% aptly confirms the fact that this Government doesn’t have, and never had, an employment strategy.

“If they think that the ’trivial and meaningless’ activation schemes announced in the Budget will solve the crisis, they are sadly mistaken.”

Regionally, employment fell by 44,000 (-3.1%) in the south and east and 26,900 (-5.4%) in the border, midland and western areas.

And of 414,700 people in part-time work, more than a quarter said they wanted more hours.

Fine Gael’s Richard Bruton said the figures exposed a lethal cocktail of long-term unemployment, widespread youth joblessness and forced emigration.

“Many of the underlying features demonstrate how deep-seated the problem is becoming,” said Mr Bruton, Enterprise, Jobs and Economic Planning Spokesman.

“Male unemployment has now reached 16.7% – that’s one in six, while among males under 25 the rate of unemployment is now one in three.

“Almost half of the unemployed are long-term unemployed, representing 6.5% of the workforce. That is five times what it was at the end of 2007.”

Mr Bruton said the concentration of job losses among young people was devastating and feeding the surging emigration numbers.

“There has been a great deal of talk about the crisis in our public finances and in our banks,” he added.

“The real crisis is the crisis in employment and the devastation it is inflicting on people’s lives.”