Unemployment in Northern Ireland has shown a further fall, according to official figures released today.
The number of people without jobs during the final quarter of 2002 was 43,000 - 5.5 per cent of the workforce - a decrease of 0.8 per cent on the previous quarter and down 0.4 per cent on the same time last year.
The total claiming benefit in January was 35,498 - 4.5 per cent of the workforce - a drop of 0.4 per cent compared with a year ago.
Despite the improved figures, long-term unemployment has shown an increase over the past year of 3.7 per cent and now makes up 41 per cent of the jobless total in Northern Ireland - some 18,000 people.
The number of people in employment has reached new levels, with 742,000 working - an increase of 29,000 over the year.
Manufacturing output has decreased - by 0.5 per cent between the second and third quarters of last year, compared with an increase of 1 per cent as a whole across the UK.
But output over the past year went down by 2 per cent, less than the 2.9 per cent drop across the UK.
More job losses in the manufacturing sector are in the pipeline, following announcements of hundreds of redundancies in the textile sector - notably 315 at Desmond and Sons which is a sole supplier Marks & Spencer.
PA