The rate of unemployment has risen to 5.2 per cent as the housing slowdown has led to another increase in the number of people claiming unemployment benefit in February.
New figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) show that an additional 8,500 people signed on in February, bringing the overall number of claimants on the seasonally adjusted Live Register to 187,900.
The numbers signing on the Live Register in February was the highest since August 1999.
Among those 8,500, the number of males claiming unemployment outstripped women by a ratio of over 4 to 1, with 7,000 new male claimants pointing to a rapid slowdown in house building.
In the year to February, there was an unadjusted increase of 30,086 (18.9 per cent), compared to an unadjusted increase of 22,697 (14.3 per cent) in the year to January 2008.
The standardised unemployment rate in February of 5.2 per cent compared with the 4.6 per cent, the latest seasonally adjusted unemployment rate from the Quarterly National Household Survey.
The Live Register is not designed to measure unemployment as it includes part-time, seasonal and casual workers entitled to unemployment benefits.
Employers' group Ibec said the labour market was facing its most significant challenge in many years and warned further job losses are likely.
Ibec Senior Economist Fergal O'Brien said: "The year end was obviously decision time for many builders and the number of lay-offs over the past three months has accelerated significantly.
"By the middle of the year we could well have seen the worst of the first round effects of the housing slowdown, but the real unknown is how many jobs will be lost in related sectors, such as in business services and the manufacturing companies supplying materials to the construction industry," he added.
Mr O'Brien said that recent months had seen a 5 per cent rise in the number of females out of work, suggesting that some businesses closely linked to housing are already feeling the pinch.
Labour Party spokesman on enterprise, trade and employment Willie Penrose said the figures today were "truly alarming" and must shake the Government out of its "complacent attitude".
"This is the fifth month in a row in which the Live Register figures have increased," he said. "It is now very clear than unless action is taken we will again have more than 200,000 on the Live Register, something we all hoped would never be seen again."
Fine Gael's Leo Varadkar said the "spectre of mass unemployment has returned to haunt the country". In a statement, he added: "Enterprise Minister Micheál Martin must make a clear statement on how it plans to restore confidence in the Irish economy."
Last week Taoiseach Bertie Ahern rebuked Construction Industry Federation (CIF) chief executive Tom Parlon for comments he made on pay rates in the building industry.
Mr Parlon, a former PD minister of state, said on radio that building workers should be paid 30 per cent less.
Mr Ahern said: "I do not believe in any area we should be organising to have races to the bottom. I do not think it is a good idea for any sector."
Mr Ahern agreed that unemployment would increase in the building industry this year. "There is no doubt about that. To go from building 80,000 houses to 55,000 houses cannot require the same number of workers," he added.