Live Register Breaches 400,000 Barrier

5 Jun 2009

It is a week of record breaking but not all record breaking gives cause for celebration: quite the opposite in fact when the Live Register and the Redundancy figures for May 2009 are examined.

On Tuesday the redundancy figure for May 2009 was 8,042 bringing the year-to-date up to 35,925 or 166.3% greater than this time last year. If this rate of increase continues redundancy figures will be over 80,000 by the end of the year. This would be an extraordinary development as the previous all time high was 40,607 in 2008 and prior to that 25,769 in 2003.

Today the Central Statistics Office released the Live Register figure for May and the seasonally adjusted figure now stands at 402,100 or up 94% on this time last year. The Standardised Unemployment Rate is now 11.8%, a figure last seen in May 1996. However, it is important to note that though unemployment statistics have not yet climbed back up to those seen in 1980s and early 1990s, Ireland has never had over 400,000 people on the Live Register before. "The social and economic costs of this figure for unemployed people themselves, their families and the country are potentially overwhelming," noted Bríd O'Brien, Head of Policy and Media with the INOU.

"Urgent and large scale action is required to address the unemployment crisis," she continued. To this end, it is particularly important that unemployed people feel that the training and education programmes they are being encouraged to go on will improve their employment prospects and ultimately lead to a job. "Currently we lack an overall labour market plan and vision," Bríd noted. "If the Government can find the necessary money to bail out the banks then it is time they found the money to generate alternative employment and ensure unemployed people have the necessary skills to access it," Bríd concluded.