Live Register rising Inexorably

1 Aug 2003

The Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed (INOU) expressed grave concern over the Live Register figures for July which shows another high monthly rise of 7,600 in the unadjusted and 2,300 in the adjusted figures.

“Coupled with the big losses in June, this makes for the biggest 2 month increase for a very long time”, said Mr. Eric Conroy, INOU General Secretary. “Unemployment is now up to 4.8% and is set to go above 5% in the next couple of months”.

Women are bearing the brunt of the rise by a margin of 2 to 1, which was also the case in June. This reflects the closure of small service-type companies which are not reflected in the recent headline factory closures. The figures for young people are also disturbing. Persons on the Live Register under 25 has increased by over 40% in the last 2 years. “This could lead to long term unemployment for many young people or the prospect of emigration as they find new job opportunities hard to find in a depressed labour market”, said Mr. Conroy.

Government must act to stem the rising level of unemployment and find jobs for people being made redundant all around the country. The Tanaiste’s recent long term initiative on high knowledge jobs in the economy is welcome, but does not go far enough and action is needed in the short term. We need to be creating jobs at all levels of the economy, not just at the high skilled end of the spectrum. In addition, it is unacceptable to be cutting places on Active Labour Market programmes, which provide work and training opportunities for unemployed people – at a time of increasing levels of unemployment.