Unemployment unchanged at 5.5%

The labour market remained weak last month as the numbers claiming unemployment benefit remained at a nine-year high, according to data released this morning by the Central Statistics Office (CSO).

The seasonally adjusted live register for April shows that 199,700 people were claiming unemployment benefit last month, a marginal decrease of 200 compared with the total for March. The unadjusted total was 196,500.

While the live register is not designed to specifically measure unemployment, the latest data pointed to standardised unemployment rate of 5.5 per cent, unchanged from March.

During the year to April there has been an unadjusted increase of 41,279 people joining the live register, a rise of 26.7 per cent.

The CSO notes that the live register saw a decrease of 2,200 women and an increase of 2,100 men last month.

In March, there was an even split between men and a women among the 12,000 people who joined the live register.

Labour Party leader Eamon Gilmore said the latest data "must shake the Government out of its complacency" on the jobs situation.

"While there was a general acceptance that unemployment would rise this year, nobody expected the increase in numbers on the live register to be as rapid or dramatic," he said.  The consequence was that more money would be required for social welfare while at the same time tax revenues will decrease, he added.

Deirdre Ryan, economist with Goodbody Stockbrokers, said despite the slight fall, the live register was 26 per cent ahead of April 2007. She said the figures do not suggest that the "worst is over" for the Irish labour market.

She said the fall in the number of women signing on may indicate the "beginning of a tendency for some females to move completely out of the labour force".

On the other hand, the number of males on the register continues to inch upwards with the annual rate now at 35 per cent year-on-year in April.

Ictu's economic adviser Paul Sweeney said it was obvious that unemployment would rise this year. "So where are the contingency plans, where is the response from employers and Government?," he asked.  

He said Government and employers should develop and implement a response to mitigate the impact of increased job losses.  "We must not and cannot wait another five or ten years for a response, by which time the unemployed have lost their skills and the problem will have become more entrenched."

Senior economist with Fás, Brian McCormick said it would be "superficial" to infer from the latest data that the sharp upward trend in the numbers signing on had come to a halt.

"The numbers signing on have increased by 41,000 in the last 12 months with the majority of this increase (28,100) coming since the start of this year," he said.  

He also pointed out that a quarter of the redundancies so far this year have been in the construction sector and that in terms of age, those under 25-years of age have been worst affected. Those on the live register aged 25 or under have increased to 41,000 in the last 12 months, a rise of almost a third, he said.