The Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection, Regina Doherty, T.D., today pointed to the latest CSO Labour Force Survey Report and the trends in long-term unemployment to emphasise that the rapid drop in the long term numbers were a result of effective and pro-active policies to tackle joblessness rather than simply an organic drop due to the ongoing recovery in the economy.
Today’s report shows that the long-term unemployment rate at 1.7% represents a full 8 percentage points drop from the peak rate of 9.7% in early 2012. To underline the scale of the recovery, as a share of total unemployment, long term unemployment represented 61.9% of total unemployment in 2012 and now it is just 35.7%.
Despite many predictions that improvements in the long-term jobless figures would take much longer to recover, Minister Doherty stressed that the impact of her Department’s activation programmes had ensured that the long term unemployment rate was now at its lowest in 15 years.
Today’s Labour Force Survey Report shows:
- The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate decreased from 5.6% to 5.0% over the quarter – down from the peak of 16% in early 2012.
- Employment increased by 81,200 or 3.7% in the year to Q1 2019, bringing total employment to a record 2,301,900 persons. This continues the upward trend since Q3 2012 and is the twenty-seventh consecutive quarter where employment has grown on an annual basis.
- Long-term unemployment decreased by 9,300 (-18.5%), bringing total long-term unemployment to 40,900.
- The youth unemployment rate is now 10.9% – down from 33.4% in 2012.
- The labour force is also at its highest level in the quarterly series, at 2,432,900.
