News & Events

144,645 people left Live Register to take up work in past 12 months – Minister Bruton

The Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Richard Bruton TD, today welcomed the publication of the latest Live Register statistics by the CSO, showing that 144,645 people left the live register to take up jobs in the past twelve months.

This represents an increase on the equivalent figure even last month, and means that 37% of the people who were on the live register one year ago left the live register to enter employment.

This represents 36 consecutive months of decrease in the live register, and means that the unemployment rate now stands at 10.7 per cent.

From an economic point of view, every person who leaves the Live Register into employment saves the Exchequer approximately €20,000 per annum in reduced social welfare expenditure and increased tax revenue, and helps to create a reinforcing cycle of positive economic benefits.

Speaking today, following an announcement of 150 jobs by Calypso, a US financial services technology, in a project supported by the Department of Jobs through IDA, Minister Bruton said:

“Employment is the Government’s top priority. Over the past two and a half years, since we launched the Action Plan for Jobs, we have put in place a range of measures to support additional jobs growth. This includes measures in successive Budgets to avoid job-killing income tax increases, and in the most recent Budget we have started moves to reduce the income tax burden on ordinary workers, which will help create further jobs.

“Parallel to our plan to support job-creation, the Pathways to Work strategy driven by Joan Burton has had a major impact in reducing long-term unemployment and ensuring that job-opportunities are filled by unemployed people.

“Today’s Live Register figures from the Central Statistics Office follow last week’s official employment figures and yesterday’s Exchequer returns, and offer further confirmation that the plan is working. Many people are not yet feeling the effects, and with unemployment still close to 11% we have a long way to go.

“However today’s figures can give people further confidence that if we continue implementing our plan, we can continue to grow the economy, create jobs, reduce unemployment and ultimately create a better country for people to live in”.

ENDS

For further information please contact:

Press Office, Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: press.office@djei.ie or Ph: 01-631 2200