On November 6th, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) released the Live Register figures for October, 2020. There were 203,172 people on the Live Register, an increase of 22,713 on the same month last year. In Table A3 to this release the CSO note that 166,766 people were in receipt of a payment, and 36,406 were not: a year ago these figures were 159,056 and 21,403 respectively. Looking at these figures from a gender and age perspective: women account for 45% of the Live Register and young people account for 12%.
74,730 people were on the Register for more than a year, 5,584 more people than October, 2019. Men account for 59.5% of this figure, and women 40.5%. While 92% of those on the register for more than a year are aged 25 years and over.
In Table A2 the CSO notes that there were 329,991 people were on the Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) in October, an increase of 112,849 on September, 2020. Looking at these figures from an age perspective, young people, aged under 25 years, account for 25% of PUP recipients. While from a gender perspective, women account for 50.4% of the Pandemic Unemployment Payment.
In Table A1, the first annex to today’s 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 September 2020, there were 53,575 participants, an increase of 9,158 on the same month last year. Over the year the numbers of people participating on employment programmes decreased by 18% to 26,174; while the numbers of people participating on education and training programmes increased by 117% to 27,401 participants. In June SOLAS Full-time Training for Unemployed People became the largest programme and remains so with 22,020 participants in September. Community Employment is the next biggest programme, with 19,315 participants.