On October 2nd, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) released the Live Register figures for September 2020. There were 211,492 people on the Live Register, an increase of 27,709 on the same month last year. 75,896 people were on the Register for more than a year, 4,302 more people than September 2019.
The CSO notes that there were 217,142 people were on the Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP), a decrease of 7,814 on August, 2020. The Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme was replaced by the Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme from September 1st (TWSS). The CSO note that they “do not yet have access to data for the Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme which replaced it so estimates for that scheme and the Total (Excluding overlaps) are not available yet for September 2020”.
Looking at these figures from an age perspective, young people, aged under 25 years, account for 13.6% of those on the Live Register and 21% of those on the Pandemic Unemployment Payment. While from a gender perspective, women account for 44.4% of the Live Register and 45.5% of the Pandemic Unemployment Payment.
In Table A1 in the Live Register release information is provided on the numbers of people ‘availing of Activation Programmes’. These figures always lag a month behind, and so in August 2020 there were 52,019 participants, an increase of 14,179 on the same month last year. Over the year the numbers of people participating on employment programmes decreased by 15.5% to 27,276; while the numbers of people participating on education and training programmes increased by 345% to 24,743 participants. In June SOLAS Full-time Training for Unemployed People became the largest programme and remains so with 21,185 participants in August. Community Employment is the next biggest programme, with 19,705 participants. On Activation Programmes the CSO database goes back to the beginning of 2007, and this is the first time Community Employment numbers have dipped below 20,000 over this thirteen year period.