Decline in number of long-term claimants on Live Register

The number of claimants signing on the Live Register fell by 2,200 last month, a decline of 0.7 per cent versus October, according to new figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO).

The data show an 11.8 per cent annual decrease in the number of long-term claimants signing on and an 8.7 per cent fall in the number of young people on the register.

Overall, there were 330,000 on the register at the end of November compared to 332,200 for the previous month.

In unadjusted terms, there were 316,586 people signing on, down 10.2 per cent or 36,061 on November 2014.

According to the latest figures, the number of male claimants fell by 1,100 or 0.6 per cent on a monthly basis and by 26,572 or 12.4 per cent in the year to November. The number of female claimants declined by 1,000 or 0.7 per cent versus October, and by 9,489 or 6.9 per cent on an annual basis.

The number of long-term claimants totalled 146,793 in November, having fallen by 16,045 or 14.6 per cent during the year. The number of long-term female claimants decreased by 3,634 or 6.4 per cent over the same period.

There was an overall annual decrease of 19,679 long-term claimants signing on, equivalent to an 11.8 per cent decline.

The figures show there were 65,678 casual and part-time workers on the Live Register in November, which represents 20.7 per cent of the total. This compares with 20.5 per cent one year earlier. In the year to November the number of casual and part-time workers decreased by 6,599 or 9.1 per cent.

In the year to November the number of people under the age of 25 on the register decreased by 9,505 or 19.4 per cent. Annual decreases in persons aged under 25 have occurred in all months since July 2010.

The percentage of persons aged under 25 on the Live Register now stands at 12.4 per cent for November 2015, down from 13.9 per cent for the same month a year earlier and from 15.3 per cent in November 2013.

Business group Isme welcomed the latest figures but said SMEs were being forced to take a cautious approach to hiring, due to labour cost uncertainty.

CSO began publishing a new series of monthly unemployment estimates in June. the latest figures, published earlier this week, put the State’s jobless rate at 8.9 per cent for November.

The estimates replaced the Standardised Unemployment Rate (SUR) as the definitive measure of monthly unemployment, which used to be published alongside the Live Register numbers.