Rapid employment growth sees Live Register hit 10-year low

The rapid acceleration in employment is reflected in the latest Live Register, which fell to a 10-year low in August.

The number of benefit claimants on the register fell by 6,800 or 3.1 per cent last month, one of the largest monthly declines on record, reducing the seasonally adjusted total to 209,900.

This was the lowest number recorded in the seasonally adjusted series since June 2008. It also represents an annual decrease of 39,098 or nearly 15 per cent.

While the register is not a measure of unemployment as people with part-time work can be entitled to benefits, it reflects conditions in the labour market and has fallen in tandem with the State’s official unemployment measure, which was put at 5.6 per cent in August.

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On a seasonally-adjusted basis the latest Live Register shows a monthly decrease of 2,600 men and 4,100 women in August. The number of long-term unemployed on the register at the end of August was 91,969, which equated to an annual decrease of nearly 18 per cent.

There were 43,594 casual and part-time workers on the register, down 19 per cent on an annual basis. The percentage of under-25s on the register now stands at 11.4 per cent, down from 12 per cent in August last year and 12.5 per cent in August 2016.

A breakdown of the figures shows craft workers remains the largest occupational group on the register, accounting for nearly 16 per cent, despite the fact that the number in the group fell over the year by 8,470 to 36,266 and recorded the largest annual decrease of any sector.