On October 7th 2022, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) released the Live Register figures for September 2022. There were 179,055 people on the Live Register, an increase of 16,157 people on the same month last year. Looking at the Register from a gender and age perspective: women account for 46.8% of the Live Register and young people account for 11%.
The number of people on the Live Register for less than one year increased by 36% to 115,941 people and of this figure: women account for 49.7% and young people 13%. 63,114 people were on the Register for more than a year: a decrease of 14,906 people in comparison to September, 2021. Looking at this part of the Register from a gender and age perspective: women account for 41.6% and young people 6.7%.
A year ago, people on the Register for more than one year accounted for 48% of the number of people on the Live Register, in September 2022 this percentage had dropped to 35%. However, the CSO notes that “Taking the duration time on the Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) into account sees the proportion of short-term recipients drop to 58.7% and the proportion of long-term recipients increase to 41.3%.”
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 August 2022 there were 31,315 participants, 862 fewer people than August 2021. The number of people participating on education and training programmes was 4,324, a decrease of 18.5% over the year. A striking feature of this change is that the numbers of people participating on SOLAS full-time training for unemployed people increased from 2,597 participants to 3,105; while the numbers of people participating on the Back to Education Allowance dropped dramatically from 2,171 to 340 people.
The number of people participating on employment programmes increased by 0.4% to 26,991. Community Employment remains the largest programme with 18,705 participants in August 2022, a 2% decrease over the year. The next biggest programme is TÚS - Community Work Placement Initiative, with 5,011 participants, an increase of 2% over the year. The third largest programme is the Back to Work Enterprise Allowance scheme: with 2,450 participants, an annual increase of 3%.
Amongst the smaller schemes, the Work Placement Experience Programme (WPEP), which commenced in July 2021, has grown from 27 participants in August 2021 to 405 participants in August 2022. While participation on the Vocational Training Opportunities Scheme (VTOS) has increased by 64% to 879 students.