UNEMPLOYMENT jumped 69 per cent last year, bringing the overall number out of work to 170,600, and the official unemployment rate to 7.7 per cent, according to the Quarterly National Household Survey published by the Central Statistics Office yesterday.

It also showed an annual decline of 4.1 per cent in the number of people employed to 2,052,000. This decrease of 86,900 in the numbers at work is the largest drop in employment since records began in 1975. The percentage of working age people – those between 15 and 64 – employed fell to 65.8 per cent, a level last recorded in early 2004.

The CSO figures suggest the private sector is bearing the brunt of the job losses. In the year to November more than 97,000 private sector employees lost their jobs while employment numbers in public-service dominated areas of health, education and public administration and defence rose by around 10,000.

Rossa White, senior economist with Davy, said industries closest to the collapsing construction sector had been worst hit by job losses but added no pain-sharing was evident: it was the private sector shedding jobs.

Austin Hughes, chief economist with KBC Bank Ireland, said the pace of job losses was faster than in most other countries. “This suggests a rapid response by Irish companies to the deterioration in global and domestic conditions in the autumn,” Mr Hughes said.

Brian Devine, economist with NCB Stockbrokers, said he planned to revise upwards his forecast for peak unemployment of 15 per cent in 2010.

“It had been hypothesised that the large number of accession immigrants that came to Ireland in the period 2004 to 2008 would return home, but Eastern European countries are now in dire straits,” Mr Devine said.

There were an estimated 476,100 foreign nationals aged over 15 living here between September and November 2008, of which 316,000 were in employment. Unemployment in this group rose to 9.5 per cent, up from 5.6 per cent in 2007.

Overall, there was a 16.5 per cent fall in jobs in construction, with approximately 34,000 losing their jobs in the year to November. The numbers employed in hotels and restaurants fell almost 8 per cent with a 5.8 per cent dip in the retail and wholesale sectors.

The survey records unemployment while the live register measures the number of people claiming jobseekers benefits and includes some part-time workers. Live register data for January show 327,861 people signing on.