Monthly unemployment figures up slightly in March compared to February

The monthly unemployment rate for March of this year rose to 5.5% from a rate of 5.2% in February.

However, the figure is down from 7.7% in the same month in 2021.

The seasonally adjusted number of unemployed people was 146,400 in March of 2022, a rise of more than 11,000 compared to the 135,200 unemployed people in February.

March's unemployment rate was however more than 42,000 people lower than for the same period last year.

The unemployment rate for women is slightly higher than for men, 5.8% compared to 5.3%, in March, while both represent a rise in February's unemployment rate, 5.4% and 5.0% respectively.

However, both have dropped from March of 2021 when the rate of unemployment for women stood at 7.8% and 7.6% for men.

In March of 2022, the seasonally adjusted number of women unemployed was 73,100 compared to 67,400 in February 2022, while the number of men unemployed was 73,200 up from 67,700 in February 2022.

The unemployment rate for people aged between 15 and 24 was 12.3% in March, down slightly from 12.7% in February, while those aged between 25 and 74 saw an unemployment rate of 4.4%, up from 3.9% in the previous month.

Commenting on today’s publication, John Mullane, Statistician said: "As the Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) scheme has ceased, the Covid-19 Adjusted Measure of Unemployment is no longer available in the Monthly Unemployment Estimates release.

"The alternative COVID-19 Adjusted Measure of Unemployment was present from reference months March 2020 until February 2022.”