THE RATE of unemployment nudged higher in April, as the live register of unemployment benefit claimants swelled by 15,800 people during the month.
The live register has now almost doubled over the past 12 months to 388,600 on a seasonally adjusted basis.
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) estimated that the rate of unemployment hit 11.4 per cent this month, up from 11 per cent in March.
Although further job losses are expected over the year, the pace at which the Live Register is increasing has slowed down since the start of 2009, when January saw a record spike in claimants, on a percentage basis.
The Government was strongly criticised yesterday for its handling of the unemployment crisis by the Opposition, business groups and trade unions.
Labour Party enterprise spokesman Willie Penrose said the Government seemed to be “whistling past the graveyard” with no willingness to engage with the process of tackling joblessness.
Mr Penrose said that the back to education allowance and the back to work enterprise allowance should be reformed so that people could avail of these supports within three or four months of losing their jobs.
Fine Gael enterprise spokesman Leo Varadkar called on the Government to introduce measures to support small businesses such as Government-backed loan guarantees, a reduction in both rates of VAT and a PRSI exemption for companies taking on new staff.
Small business group Isme described the figures as “atrocious” and said less Government “bickering” and more action was required to prevent further job losses.
Siptu economist Marie Sherlock said the live register increase showed that the Government’s budget initiatives on employment were “too few in number” and “too limited in reach”.
Some 23,345 training, work experience and education places were announced under various initiatives in the supplementary Budget earlier this month.
“Unfortunately, the crisis is far too serious to wait around for small-scale pilot schemes to be rolled out,” Ms Sherlock said.
The Economic and Social Research Institute said earlier this week that it expected the rate of unemployment to average at 16.8 per cent next year.
Davy economist Rossa White said yesterday that unemployment would reach 13 per cent by the end of the year and tip 15 per cent by the end of 2010, while Goodbody economist Deirdre Ryan forecast a 14.3 per cent rate by the end of 2009 and a 15.3 per cent rate by the end of 2010.
Ulster Bank economist Lynsey Clemenger said the slower rate of increase on the live register meant yesterday’s data was better than expected, but that the numbers of people signing on would continue to rise.
Not everyone on the live register is unemployed.
The CSO estimates that about 62,300 of the claimants are casual or part-time workers who are entitled to make a claim for the jobseeker’s benefit or allowance payments.
