Long-Term Unemployment Continues To Rise

2 Feb 2011

Two sets of statistics came out today that at a first glance may create the impression that Ireland's unemployment problem is easing. This would amount to little more than a false hope, an illusion as so many of the people emigrating from Ireland; so many of the people re-entering education; so many of the people failing to make the transition from Jobseekers Benefit to the means-tested payment Jobseekers Allowance are testament to.

The redundancy figures issued by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Innovation show that the redundancy figure for January 2011 is 25% lower than for the same month last year. However January's figure at 4,893 is higher than autumn and winter months of 2010 and equates with the monthly average for 2010. Given recent announcements of job losses and predictions of more to come, Ireland has a long way to go before any real hope of a decent job can be given to unemployed people.

The other release today was the Live Register figures for January 2011. The Seasonally Adjusted figure for January is 6,900 less than that for December 2010 and so now stands at 439,200. The Standardised Unemployment Rate is 13.4% which though lower than the last Quarterly National Household Survey figure, covering the third quarter last year, of 13.6% but is higher than January 2010 by 0.4%.

Looking beyond the headline figures what is far more worrying is the 55.9% rise in long-term claimants which now stands at 160,554. In January 2007, the last time we had an election, the entire Live Register, at 158,752, was lower than the current number of long-term claimants. In 2007 redundancies averaged out at 2,122 per month: 2.3 times the monthly average of 4,894 in 2010. There were 2.114m people employed in 2007 in comparison to 1.86m employed in 2010 (third quarter), a drop of 12%.

The scale of the unemployment crisis facing Ireland is unprecedented and requires urgent and immediate action. Such action must be on a scale that can produce meaningful results and give real hope to unemployed people and others who will be entering the labour market over the coming period. In the meantime social protection supports for unemployed people must not be further eroded. The INOU is calling on all political parties to treat unemployment as their number 1 priority.