April sees slight decrease in unemployment
The standardised unemployment rate in April was 14.6%, marginally down from a rate of 14.7% in March, according to figures released today.
Today's report from the Central Statistics Office showed that monthly decrease in the standardised unemployment rate was caused by a fall of 1,600 (-0.4%) in the seasonally adjusted number of persons signing on the Live Register.
The latest seasonally adjusted unemployment rate from the Quarterly National Household Survey was 14.7% in the fourth quarter of 2010.
The average unemployment rate during 2010 was 13.6%.
In April 2011 there were 439,571 people signing on the Live Register representing an increase of 6,914 (+1.6%) over the year.
This increase is very similar to that recorded in March 2011 (+6,072 or +1.4%) but far less than the increase of 50,781 (+13.3%) seen in the year to April 2010.
The number of casual and part-time workers on the Live Register increased over the year by 6,485 (+8.2%) to 85,594.
Casual and part-time workers in April accounted for 19.5% of those on the Live Register, an increase from 12.4% three years earlier.
