Consistent rise in unemployment figures requires immediate action

10 Jan 2003

‘The latest Live Register figures show a worrying increase in unemployment rates in absolute terms’, says June Tinsley, Policy Officer of the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed (INOU), ‘there has been a 4.7% increase in the numbers claiming the dole between November and December 2002.

Although the seasonally adjusted Live Register figure for December 2002 shows a small reduction of 300 to end up at 164,700, but this is still an increase of 8% on the December 2001 figure of 152,700.

The standardised unemployment rate in December 2002 was 4.4%, which compares to 4.0% in December 2001. These increases in unemployment are due to a number of factors including recent factory closures and changes in governmental policy such as the further cuts in the Community Employment programme and the cutbacks in the budgets for job creation agencies such as Enterprise Ireland.

‘It is alarming to see that the unemployment rate which increased in 2002 is set to continue in 2003 if the predictions of the economic commentators are accurate’, said Ms Tinsley. ‘Action must to be taken to place unemployment firmly back on the Government agenda to ensure that the rising trends in unemployment rates are tackled.’