News & Events

Minister Nash welcomes continuing falls in Live Register

The Minister for Business and Employment, Ged Nash TD, has welcomed the publication of the Live Register figures from the Central Statistics Office today (Wed 1st April) which shows that the standard unemployment rate is now 10%.

More than 11,200 people left the Register to take up work in February 2015

This represents a fall in the number of people on the Live Register of 1.8% on last month, and continues the trends of consistent reduction in the levels of people signing on. For the first time since January 2009, the number of people on the Live Register has fallen below 350,000.

The CSO figures also show that the number of people who left the Live Register to take up work in February was 11,240. This demonstrates that for the great majority of people, there was a strong financial incentive to work.

The year on year decrease in Live Register figures is -10.9%, while the two year decrease is -18%. 

Minister Nash said, “While the overall number of people out of work is still too high, these latest figures from the CSO are welcome and confirm the trends of falling unemployment in every part of the country. In the last year alone, the Live Register has fallen by 10.9% - or more than 42,500 people.”
“The signals for the future are very positive. With the abolition of milk quotas today and the opportunities for job creation this will bring outside the main urban centres, a new round of garda recruitment in Templemore and plans to develop a major tourist resort in Co Longford, all announced today alone, I believe we will see unemployment rates hit 9% by the end of this year.”

ENDS

For more information contact:

Press Office, Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation ph. 6312200 or press.office@djei.ie