November sees 4,200 fewer people on Live Register
The number of people signing on has fallen for the third month in a row, it emerged today.
November saw a decrease of 4,200 in the Live Register in November 2010, according to official figures published by the Central Statistics Office today.
The number of persons on the Live Register is now at 425,002, an annual increase of 11,497 (+2.8%) in the unadjusted series. This compares with an increase of 17,146 (+4.2%) in the year to October 2010.
The standardised unemployment rate in November was 13.5%, down from 13.6% in October. The Live Register is not designed to measure unemployment, however. Unemployment is measured
by the Quarterly National Household Survey and the latest seasonally adjusted figure, for April to June 2010, is 284,500 persons unemployed.
Fine Gael Enterprise Spokesman Richard Bruton said it was the clearest indication to date of the impact of emigration.
“These people are not leaving the Live Register to take up new jobs – they are leaving the country,” Mr Bruton said.
“Emigration is now really biting. In the last month alone, a third of the reduction in the live register can be accounted for by a relatively small group of professionals, while over 40% are under the age of 25.
“These are the most outwardly mobile categories, and they are leaving in droves.”
Willie Penrose, Labour’s enterprise spokesman, backed the Opposition assessment that emigration was the real driver behind the falling live register.
“The truth is that there will be no increase in employment unless and until the drive to tackle joblessness is led from the top,” Mr Penrose said.
Avine McNally, director of the Small Firms Association, said the figures suggested the jobs market was stabilising.
“Jobs will return when confidence returns to the domestic economy,” she said.
“Small firms are the ’engines of recovery’ and real and meaningful growth will come from the small business sector, but that is unlikely to happen for some time yet, as many firms are struggling to survive, due to cashflow difficulties; input costs from government-administered sectors and restricted access to credit.”
There were 119,000 Jobseekers Benefit (JB) claimants on the Live Register in November, a monthly decrease of 3,716 (-3%), while the number of Jobseekers Allowance (JA) applicants decreased by 1,293 (-0.5%) to 279,771.
In November there were 40,787 new registrants on the Live Register, which compares with 49,827 in the previous month.
New registrants consisted of 19,139 JB claims (46.9%), 19,787 JA applications (48.5%) and 1,861 other registrants (4.6%).
On average 6,208 male and 3,989 female new registrants joined the Live Register each week in November. By comparison, in November 2009 7,759 male and 4,275 female new registrants joined the Live Register each week.
