Minister for Social Protection Leo Varadkar welcomes the reduction in unemployment rates outlined in the Quarterly National Household Survey, released recently by the Central Statistics Office. One of the Minister’s key priorities on taking up his role was to ensure that more people on Department supports are assisted to move into the workforce through the provision of targeted activation programmes and employment and training schemes. The QNHS statistics released this morning are an indicator that solid progress is being made in tackling unemployment.
Employment increased by 56,200 or 2.9% in the year to the second quarter of 2016, bringing total employment over 2 million to 2,014,900 persons. This continues the upward trend since Q4 2012 and is the fifteenth consecutive quarter where employment has grown on an annual basis. On a seasonally adjusted basis, employment increased by 20,000 (+1.0%) over the previous quarter, and is up 181,000 since mid-2012.
The QNHS figures also show that unemployment decreased by 23,400 (-11.1%) in the year to Q2 2016, bringing the total number of unemployed people down to 187,800. This continues the decline first seen in Q3 2012.
Numbers of people in long-term unemployment has dropped to under 100,000 for the first time since 2009. Long-term unemployment decreased by 22,700 (-19.1%) in the year to Q2 2016, bringing total long-term unemployment to 95,900, under 100,000 for the first time since Q3 2009. In Q2 2016 long-term unemployment accounted for 51.1% of total unemployment compared to 56.1% in Q2 2015 and 57.6% in Q2 2014. The long-term unemployment rate decreased from 5.5% to 4.4% over the year.
Youth unemployment, those aged 15-24, has decreased from 19.9% to 16.8% over the year to Q2 2016.
The figures released by the Central Statistics Office sharply contrast with previous recoveries where not only was the recovery jobless but even when jobs were created, people who were long term unemployed couldn’t get access to them. Long-term unemployment has dropped to under 100,000 for the first time since 2009, which indicates that this time around the initiatives taken by the Government to help unemployed people access the labour market are working
