'Numbers on Live Register up by 3,330'

mathie

But I thought the recession was over?!

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2010/0109/1224261978631.html

THE NUMBER of people claiming unemployment benefits rose by 3,300 in December, the largest increase since August, according to Live Register data.

Unemployment remains at a 14-year high, data from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) shows.

The Live Register of Jobseeker’s Benefit claimants stood at 426,700 on a seasonally adjusted basis last month, up 133,700 on the previous December. Estimated unemployment for December remained at 12.5 per cent, the same as in October and November. However, it is the contraction of the labour force – partly as a result of migration – that is curbing further increases.

The number of people under the age of 25 on the Live Register increased by 1,036 in December. There were 22,400 more people in this age category on the Live Register at the end of the year than there was at the start of 2009.

Youth Work Ireland said the latest rise in youth unemployment illustrated that the Government’s strategy in cutting welfare payments to young people, introduced in December’s budget, was flawed. “This increase is a major challenge to the Government view that cutting welfare for young people has had any major effect on their labour market choices,” said Youth Work Ireland’s Michael McLoughlin.

Labour Party leader Eamon Gilmore said the increase in the Live Register “cast serious doubt on claims by Brian Cowen and other senior Ministers that the recession has bottomed out”. Mr Gilmore said there were “potentially huge social consequences” arising from long-term unemployment. “We know the damage done to families and communities by long-term unemployment during the 1980s and, if we want to avoid a repeat of this phenomenon, urgent action is now required.”

The_Honeybadger

Even the most optomistic predictions state that we will lose another 70,000 jobs this year. High unemployment is here to stay for the foreseeable future I am afraid. Many of these jobs will be in small companies who will have to give up the fight, and will be gradual rather than big layoffs like Dell. Vey sad.

Fratton Fred

What is the 12.5% based on?

nesf

Unemployment generally lags behind economic recovery (i.e. a return to GDP growth). So even if the economy does recover expect it to take longer for unemployment to fall significantly.

Honestly, I find it frankly bizarre that a change of 3,000 in a number as big as 426,700 is bringing such a strong comment from Gilmore. From June to December of 2009 we went from 12% to 12.5%. From January 2009 to June 2009 we went from 9.4% to 12%. The rate of change is so blatantly different that commenting on an increase of 0.1% in the rate seems excessive.


Also, remember people that the Live Register is not a good measure of unemployment because it fails to discriminate between different types of worker (The Live Register is not designed to measure unemployment. It includes part-time workers (those who work up to three days a week), seasonal and casual workers entitled to Jobseekers Benefit or Allowance.)

i.e. people working part time and getting the dole for the days they don't work are counted but they shouldn't be counted in working out the unemployment rate which is about people who are out of work completely who work in areas where unemployment for certain periods is not typical of the profession.

nesf

Fratton Fred wrote: »

What is the 12.5% based on?

It's based on the number of unemployed people versus the number of people in the potential labour force. The labour force excludes people who are not seeking employment, i.e. people on disability, pensions, in education, stay-at-home parents etc.

Sleepy

I know this is industry specific, but what I find strange is that while I've spent hours every week looking for work in Ireland (who's GDP shows it as being technically out of recession) to no avail, I've been contacted about 4/5 contracts in the UK in the last week where the GDP shows them as still being in recession! The general attitude here (south of London) seems to be that things are picking back up again. The difference between having such an open economy as ours and having a reasonable sized domestic market?

gurramok

nesf wrote: »

Unemployment generally lags behind economic recovery (i.e. a return to GDP growth). So even if the economy does recover expect it to take longer for unemployment to fall significantly.

Honestly, I find it frankly bizarre that a change of 3,000 in a number as big as 426,700 is bringing such a strong comment from Gilmore. From June to December of 2009 we went from 12% to 12.5%. From January 2009 to June 2009 we went from 9.4% to 12%. The rate of change is so blatantly different that commenting on an increase of 0.1% in the rate seems excessive.

My other half is one of the new December entrants to the Live Register if been let go on Xmas Eve counts as a December statistic:(

Do you have employment numbers to know whats really going on to gauge the affect of emigration and back to education?

nesf

gurramok wrote: »

My other half is one of the new December entrants to the Live Register if been let go on Xmas Eve counts as a December statistic:(

Do you have employment numbers to know whats really going on to gauge the affect of emigration and back to education?

The Quarterly National Household Survey will give us concrete details on labour force changes when it comes out. It's noted that the labour force is shrinking but we won't have an idea of actual numbers yet.

OMD

Fratton Fred wrote: »

What is the 12.5% based on?

As nesf said it is based on the % of potential labour force that is unemployed. It is substantially less than the number on the live register. "Unemployment" is about 250,000 based on a labour force of approx 2 million.

Zavalov

The number of people signing on in January was 436,936 an increase of just over 13,300 compared with December. This is after the Minister for Finance insisted that Ireland was turning the corner “the worse is over” as he introduced Budget 2010

ei.sdraob

from another thread but highly relevant to this

ei.sdraob wrote: »

as per http://www.cso.ie/releasespublications/documents/earnings/current/psempearn.pdf

A total of 360,900 people were employed in the Public Sector in September 2009
compared to 369,100 in September 2008, a decrease of 8,200.

please keep in mind that includes people who retired

so the public sector shrank by 2.2% in one year

once again including retirees



theres no way in hell they can claim that they suffered anywhere near the scale of private sector shrinkage

ardmacha

theres no way in hell they can claim that they suffered anywhere near the scale of private sector shrinkage

Nobody claims or expects a similar level of shrinkage and no rational person draws attention to it as it is bleeding obvious. The public sector provides things such as health and education that are of lasting value and so the demand for them does not vary much.

Idbatterim

you are all such doom mongers! Da Fundementals of de economy are sound! anyone that doubts it should commit suicide!

tedstriker

http://tiny.cc/unemploy
http://tiny.cc/liveReg

This is how the figures look in chart form. VERY F**KING SCARY!