On December 3rd 2021, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) released the Live Register and PUP figures for November 2021. There were 164,626 people on the Live Register, a decrease of 29,432 on the same month last year. Looking at the Register from a gender and age perspective: women account for 45% of the Live Register and young people account for 10%.
74,230 people, accounting for 45% of the Live Register, were on it for more than a year. This is a decrease of 875 people in comparison to November, 2020. Looking at this part of the Register from a gender and age perspective: women account for 40% and young people 8%.
In Table A3 to this release the CSO note that 147,436 people were in receipt of a payment, and 17,190 were not in November 2021: a year ago these figures were 166,591 and 27,467 respectively. 35% 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 and an half as early on in the COVID-19 crisis they noted an increase in the numbers of people signing-on who were not in receipt of a payment.
In Table A2 the CSO notes that there were 54,824 people on the Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) in November 2021, a decrease of 22,979 on October 2021, and an annual decrease of 299,077. Looking at these figures from an age perspective, young people aged under 25 years account for 7.5% of PUP recipients: a year ago this figure was 25%. Women account for 42% people on the Pandemic Unemployment Payment in November 2021: a year ago this figure was 50%.
In Table A1, information is provided on the number of people ‘availing of Activation Programmes’. These figures always lag a month behind, and so in October 2021, there were 40,177 participants, 663 more people than the same month last year. The number of people participating on education and training programmes was 11,450, a decrease of 14% over the year. While, over the year the number of people participating on employment programmes increased by 10% to 28,727.
Community Employment remains the biggest programme, with 20,461 participants. The next biggest programme is Tús, the Community Work Placement Initiative with 5,215 participants. The new Work Placement Experience Programme had 161 participants in October 2021.