UNEMPLOYMENT IS expected to run at 13.75 per cent next year, according to Minister for Enterprise Mary Coughlan, who said “significant employment growth” is not expected. The current standardised unemployment rate is 12.5 per cent, according to the figures released yesterday by the Central Statistics Office.

Seasonally adjusted figures show the number of people signing on rose by 900 to 423,400 last month, after it fell in October for the first time since March 2007. Ms Coughlan told the Dáil that “the Department of Finance Pre-Budget Outlook forecasts [the] unemployment rate in 2010 to average about 13.75 per cent”.

She said she could not give the number because “we are basing it on averages. We cannot say for definite what the situation will be.” She said, however, that “considerable churn is still evident in the Irish labour market. Over the past 12 months 150,500 have left the Live Register to take up employment. The Government is taking specific measures to ensure that job retention and creation are maximised.”

Ms Coughlan referred to OECD figures which showed 16 million more people were unemployed since December 2007, with a current total of 46 million for member countries.

But Fine Gael spokesman Leo Varadkar noted that the Minister did not include in her answer that among OECD countries, “Ireland has the second highest standardised unemployment rate, second only to Spain and it showed how much worse things are in Ireland than in other countries”.

Unemployment, he said, was the Government’s biggest problem. “Half the deficit” stemmed from it, but “the resources you’ve put in are somewhere in the region of €100 million or €150 million”. Yet “the Government was able to find €7 billion to overpay the banks”.

Mr Varadkar asked: “Is it not the case that you could find at least €1 billion to support employment?” Ms Coughlan replied: “We’ll never have enough money but I think the target is very focused.”

She said the enterprise stabilisation fund launched earlier this year, which supplies direct support to internationally traded companies, had approved €56 million to some 140 companies and there would be a second call on the scheme, open to companies previously not eligible, with a €60 million fund.

Taoiseach Brian Cowen rejected claims by Labour leader Eamon Gilmore that he was attempting to put a “gloss” on the unemployment figures by “representing them as though they were an improvement”. “I did no such thing,” insisted Mr Cowen.

The Taoiseach had told the House that he understood there was a 7,000 increase in unemployment. Mr Cowen said the “year-on-year increase continues to fall”. When the figures were released Mr Gilmore accused the Taoiseach of attempting to put a “gloss” on them when the seasonally adjusted figure stood at 423,400, “the highest November figure ever”. He added that “there is no basis for the Taoiseach putting a gloss on these figures or trying to suggest to the House that somehow they represent some kind of an improvement. It is a disgraceful and scandalously high level of unemployment.”

But Mr Cowen stressed that “I have never suggested there is a gloss to be put on unemployment figures. Anyone out of work is one too many as all deputies know.”