Unemployment down for November
The rate of unemployment has fallen for the third consecutive month, figures showed today.
The number of people out of work in November was down 1.2% on the previous month, the Central Statistics Office announced, bringing the jobless total to 164,541.
Analysts said the figures are evidence that the economic recovery is taking hold in Ireland.
But despite the continued upturn, the statistics prompted criticism from the opposition.
Fine Gael trade and employment spokesman Phil Hogan warned of an underlying trend of increasing redundancies.
“Figures released today appear to represent a stabilisation of employment levels but they do not reflect the substantial increase in the notification of redundancies in the last few months,” he said.
Finance minister Charlie McCreevy said this week that the numbers at work would rise by some 23,000 next year, although he predicted that the unemployment rate would rise to around 5%.
The jobless total is up almost 6,000 on this time last year.
