June 2018 Unemployment Figures

On July 3rd, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) published the Monthly Unemployment (MU) figures for June 2018. The Monthly Unemployment figures are based on the latest Labour Force Survey (LFS) and changes in the subsequent Live Register figures. The LFS Q1 was published in June and revised the Monthly Unemployment figures considerably.  At the beginning of June, it was reported that 139,000 people were unemployed in May 2018: the revised figure is 123,100 people were unemployed. The figure for June, 2018 is: 120,200, were unemployed, a decrease of 34,300 people on June 2017. The Monthly Unemployment Rate (MUR) reported for May 2018 was originally 5.8%, the revised figure is 5.2%, a difference of 0.6%. The MUR for June 2018 is 5.1%, a decrease of 1.5% on June 2017.  

Looking at these figures from an age perspective, originally it was reported that there were 106,700 people aged between 25-74 years were unemployed and their unemployment rate was 5% in May 2018. The revised figures are: 92,900 people were unemployed and their unemployment rate was 4.4%. According to the revised figures this age group’s unemployment rate dropped below 5% in February 2018: the last time it was below 5% was June 2008 when it was 4.9%.

The unemployment rate for people aged 25 to 74 years remained at 4.4% in June 2018. In that month 91,500 people were categorised as unemployed, a decrease of 20,400 people on June 2017, when the unemployment rate was 5.4%  

Looking at younger unemployed people, for those aged between 15-24 years, the revised figures for May 2018 are: 30,200 people were unemployed and their unemployment rate is 11.8%. The revision here is not as dramatic as it was for the older age group, as it was originally reported that 32,300 young people were unemployed and their unemployment rate was 11.9%. In June 2018, 28,600 young people were unemployed and their unemployment rate is 11.4%. In June 2017, there were 14,000 more young people unemployed and their unemployment rate was 15.4%.

On July 5^th the CSO published the Live Register figures for June 2018. There were 228,065 people on the Register, a decrease of 40,661 on June 2017. 41.6% or 94,778 people were on the register for more than a year, 20,427 fewer people than the same month last year. In the Annex to the Live Register figures, the CSO publishes the numbers of people on Activation Programmes, and in May 2018 there were 54,337 participants. There were 37,159 participants on employment programmes, a decrease of 10.5% on the year.  There 17,178 participants on education and training programmes, up 2.9% on the year. However, the reality may be different as the number of participants on the Solas Full-time training programmes has not been updated since December 2017.

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