On September 3rd, 2021, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) released the Live Register and PUP figures for August 2021. There were 179,761 people on the Live Register, a decrease of 46,083 on the same month last year. Looking at the Register from a gender and age perspective: women account for 47% of the Live Register and young people account for 11%.
44% of the Live Register or 79,770 people were on it for more than a year. This is an increase of 3,965 people in comparison to August 2020. Looking at this part of the Register from a gender and age perspective: women account for 40% of the Live Register and young people 9%.
In Table A3 to this release the CSO note that 162,863 people were in receipt of a payment, and 16,898 were not in August 2021: a year ago these figures were 181,079 and 44,765 respectively. 60% of the decrease in the Live Register over the past year is amongst those signing-on who were not in receipt of a payment. The CSO started to publish this data over the past year as they noted an increase in the numbers of people signing-on who were not in receipt of a payment during the first couple of months of the COVID-19 crisis.
In Table A2, the CSO notes that there were 143,606 people on the Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) in August 2021, a decrease of 19,721 on July 2021, and an annual decrease of 83,350. Looking at these figures from an age perspective, young people aged under 25 years account for 18% of PUP recipients. While from a gender perspective, women account for 46% of the Pandemic Unemployment Payment. A year ago women accounted for 48% of those in receipt of this payment, while young people accounted for 21%.
In Table A1, information is provided on the number of people ‘availing of Activation Programmes’. These figures always lag a month behind. In July 2021, there were 33,657 participants, 5,086 fewer people than the same month last year. The number of people participating on education and training programmes was 6,879, a decrease of 27% over the year. Over the year the number of people participating on employment programmes decreased by 9% to 26,778.
Community Employment remains the biggest programme, with 19,196 participants. Only one programme increased over the past year and that is the Part-time Job Incentive Scheme. It is a small scheme with 240 participants, but in July 2020 there were only 111 participants. The new Work Placement Experience Programme is now listed and had 2 participants in July 2021.