THE NUMBER of people claiming unemployment benefits fell in January by the largest amount in a single month since records began in 1967.

According to new figures released yesterday by the Central Statistics Office, a seasonally adjusted decline of almost 6,900 took place in the claimant count between December and January.

The biggest fall recorded previously was in October 1996, at the start of the Celtic Tiger period.

The decline in the claimant count contributed to the rate of unemployment falling to 13.4 per cent, from a recessionary high-point of 13.6 per cent over most of the second half of 2010, including December. The last time the monthly rate of unemployment fell by 0.2 percentage points was in 2004. The last time it fell by more than 0.2 percentage points was in the late 1990s.

Both the claimant count and unemployment rate measures are adjusted by statisticians to strip out seasonal volatility.

The number of claimants fell to 439,200 in January 2011 on a seasonally adjusted basis. This is more than 20,000 below the all-time peak of just over 450,000 recorded in July last year.

However, the numbers remain close to three times the average in the years before the recession. From 2005 until mid-2007, the numbers signing on for monthly jobless benefits were broadly stable at just over 150,000.

A possible indication that the rate of emigration is picking up is the unusually large decline in the number of people aged under 25 claiming benefits. Between December and January there was a 2.2 per cent seasonally adjusted fall in young claimants.

An indication that the number of Irish-born emigrants may be increasing was a decline in the proportion of Irish nationals claiming benefits in recent months.

Until last year, the trend since the beginning of the recession had been for foreign nationals to be more adversely affected by unemployment.

The number of foreign nationals on the Live Register in January, at just under 80,000, represented a four-fold increase on mid-2007. Over the same period, the number of Irish nationals on the dole registered slightly more than a two-fold increase.

The proportion of those claimants who have been signing on for one year or more continued to rise in January, to reach 36.3 per cent of the total.

It stood at 35.5 per cent in December and at less than one-quarter in January 2010.

Much of the increase in long-term joblessness is the result of a collapse in demand for those with construction industry skills.

Separate figures on the number of redundancies reported to the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Innovation showed that almost 5,000 people were laid off in January. This was the highest monthly number since July 2010.

As the figures are not adjusted for seasonal factors, comparison with the same month in the previous year may give a better indicator of trends. In January 2011 the number of redundancies fell by 1,700 compared to January 2010, suggesting an easing of the shake-out in the labour market.