Malahide has lowest unemployment rate of any town

Malahide in north Co Dublin has emerged as having the lowest rate of unemployment among the Republic's large towns.

According to statistics for towns with a population of more than 10,000, some 95.7 per cent of the local labour force aged over 15 years in Malahide were in jobs on census night in 2006. In contrast, the figures released yesterday by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) showed that Ballina in Co Mayo had the highest level of unemployment among large towns. Some 15.8 per cent of Ballina's workforce was out of work when the census was taken.

State-wide, the analysis showed the number of those at work in 2006 was 1,930,042, an increase from 1,641,587 in 2002.

But it showed that while the number at work had increased significantly, in some sectors employment declined. These included employment in agriculture, forestry and fishing, which declined from 97,281 in 2002 to 89,227 in 2006.

Manufacturing industries also saw a small drop in employment levels over the four years, with numbers falling from 244,203 to 243,182. However, employment was up by almost 50,000 in the health and social work area. Employment in other community, social and personal service activities also rose by about 16,000, while education was up by almost 18,000. The largest increase was in the construction industry, where the figures rose by 65,913 to 215,184.

In terms of the available workforce as a percentage of the population, Swords in north Dublin came out on top, with 75.3 per cent of those over 15 in the labour market. This includes those in work, those who had been made unemployed and those seeking work for the first time on census night in 2006. In contrast, Tralee in Co Kerry had the least proportion of its population available for work, with 59.4 per cent of all those over 15 years available for work on census night.

In terms of the regional breakdown for towns with more than 10,000 people, Killarney, Co Kerry, had the highest proportion of its workforce, some 22.3 per cent, involved in the hotel industry.

Only one in five workers in the cities of Limerick and Waterford and the towns of Clonmel, Co Tipperary, and Carrigaline and Midleton in Co Cork were involved in manufacturing, compared with an average of 12.6 per cent in the Republic generally.

The north Dublin towns of Swords and Balbriggan had high concentrations of transport workers resident, while more than one in 10 workers in Malahide and Greystones, Co Wicklow worked in banking and financial services.

The full census report is available on the CSO website at  www.cso.ie