Long-term unemployment rising

1 Dec 2010





A striking feature of today's Live Register release is the increase in the numbers of people on it for more than a year. According to the Central Statistics Office there are 425,002 people on the seasonally unadjusted register of which 150,327 or 35% are on it for more than a year. A year ago there were 413,505 people on this register and 91,347 or 22% of these had been on it for more than a year.



"This is a very worrying increase," noted Bríd O'Brien, Head of Policy and Media with the INOU. "It is particularly worrying as there is so little job growth built into the National Recovery Plan," she continued. The INOU is its Pre-Budget Submission urged the Government to invest addition resources in addressing the unemployment crisis and to develop as a matter of urgency an integrated Jobs Strategy. Yet in the Government's four year plan we get a proposed reduction of €2.8bn in the Social Protection budget and only a cumulative increase of 90,000 jobs. Such an increase will not get people who are currently out of work, back to work nor provide much hope to all the young people who will leave school and college over the next four years.



"Given the proposed cuts in the Department of Social Protection's budget over the next four weeks, next week's Budget is unlikely to bring much Christmas cheer," said Bríd. "Unemployed people are facing a bleak future being asked to survive on less and less money and with few options open to them," she concluded.