Unemployment resumed its downward trend last month with a fall of 1,402 in the numbers signing on the live register. On a seasonally adjusted basis, the number fell 900 to 170,100. Dominic Coyle reports.

The figure was published on the day 120 jobs were lost in north Dublin, accentuating the problems facing employment in the manufacturing sector. The seasonally adjusted figure is still 1,700 above the same month last year.

Commentators said the figures indicated that the labour market in the State remained reasonably positive and stable.

With the exception of January, when the figure rose 1,200, the seasonally adjusted number has fallen consistently since last July, despite a rise in the number of notified redundancies.

However, Davy economist Mr Robbie Kelleher warned that many of the redundancies announced late last year had yet to affect the register. "Many of these are due to be effected in March and April 2004," he notes.

The February data showed the numbers signing on decreasing in all regions, with the largest percentage fall in the west and south-east regions.

Friends First economist Mr Jim Power said that, despite the rise in redundancy figures, the State was still a net creator of jobs.

"However, it is significant that the jobs that are being created in the main are part-time, relatively low paid, and predominantly in the hospitality and public sectors," he said. "Every single component of manufacturing from the large multinational sectors to the smallest SMEs has shed jobs over the past couple of years."

This raised concerns, he said, about what was arguably an ongoing deterioration in the quality of Irish employment.

Opposition politicians expressed concern about the continuing job-loss announcements. Fine Gael spokesman Mr Phil Hogan said the figures showed that 10,000 people had joined the live register in the past five months.

Labour spokesman Mr Brendan Howlin said that, while the figures were clearly better than the heights reached in the late 1980s and early 1990s, there was no room for complacency, with 2003 having been one of the poorest years on record in terms of attracting inward industrial investment.

The Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed said any fall in the numbers claiming for unemployment was welcome. However, general secretary Mr Eric Conroy said he was wary of reading too much into one month's figures.

The live register is not seen as an accurate indicator of unemployment, as it includes some part-time, seasonal and casual workers. The quarterly national household survey, which presents a more accurate picture, will be published for the fourth quarter of 2003 next week. The last survey showed 92,400 people out of work.