April unemployment down

UNEMPLOYMENT AS measured by the Live Register declined by 200 to 199,700 on a seasonally adjusted basis during April, according to figures published yesterday by the Central Statistics Office (CSO).

The slight fall in April contrasts with a 12,000 increase in the seasonally adjusted numbers on the register during March. The CSO yesterday attributed the wide variations over the past two months principally to the timing of Easter this year.

There is a seasonal increase in register numbers at Easter. Schools and colleges close for holidays and many casual and part-time workers, particularly women, sign on the register temporarily before resuming work when the holidays end.

The CSO's seasonal coefficients reflect the fact that Easter usually falls in April. With an early Easter this year, the coefficients magnified the effects of the actual increase in the numbers signing on during March and depressed the extent of the change in April.

The actual numbers on the Live Register fell by 2,394 to 195,598 during April, which again reflects an early Easter in 2008. This fall was wholly attributable to a decline in the number of women on the register. The number of women signing on increased by 4,000 in March and fell by 3,000 in April. The number of men on the register rose by 4,500 in March and by a further 600 during April.

The register is not designed to measure unemployment. Instead, it shows principally the number of benefit claimants. However, movements in the numbers on the register provide a useful proxy for short-run trends in unemployment. The standardised unemployment rate - the numbers out of work as a percentage of the labour force - remained unchanged from March at 5.5 per cent during April. The last time the unemployment rate was higher was in the second quarter of 1999.

The seasonally-adjusted numbers on the register have increased by 28,100 or by one-sixth since the start of the year. The number of men signing on has risen by 21,500 or 20.1 per cent in the first four months of 2008, reflecting the scale of job losses in construction and manufacturing, two areas of predominantly male employment. The number of women on the register has risen by 6,700 or 10.3 per cent.

Over the past 12 months, the unadjusted numbers on the register have risen from 154,319 to 195,598, an increase of 41,279 or 26.7 per cent. The biggest proportionate increases have been amongst those signing on for Jobseekers Benefit, where claimants have risen by 40.7 per cent over the past year, and amongst those under 25 years of age, where the numbers signing on have climbed by more than one-third.

There have also been significant regional variations in the numbers signing on. The lowest increase in Live Register numbers over the past year has been the 19 per cent recorded in Dublin. The largest has been the 37.1 per cent increase reported for the midlands.