The latest drop in Live Register numbers was today heralded by the Government as further proof that the jobs market was “stabilising”.
According to the Central Statistics Office, the number of people in receipt of unemployment benefit fell 4,200 last month to 425,002. It was the third month in a row that the Live Register has fallen.
Minister for Social Protection Éamon Ó Cuív welcomed the figures, describing them as “positive".
“The Live Register has risen in November in each of the last five years but this year sees the first November fall since 2004. The scale of the fall is positive too as it is the biggest November fall since 1999,” Mr Ó Cuív said.
However, he said that unemployment levels remained high and job protection, job creation and productivity growth are the Government’s key concerns.
But Fine Gael enterprise spokesman Richard Bruton said the figures were the clearest indication to date of the impact of emigration.
“These people are not leaving the live register to take up new jobs — they are leaving the country,” he said.
“Emigration is now really biting. In the last month alone, a third of the reduction in the live register can be accounted for by a relatively small group of professionals, while over 40 per cent are under the age of 25.”
Labour Party enterprise spokesman Willie Penrose said while the decline in Live Register numbers was welcome the underlying pattern remained unchanged.
“Virtually all of the decline recorded today can be attributed to factors such as the emigration, the likes of which we have not seen since the 1980s,” he said.
However, Avine McNally, director of the Small Firms Association echoed Government sentiment, saying the figures suggested the jobs market was stabilising.
“Jobs will return when confidence returns to the domestic economy,” she said.
“Small firms are the ‘engines of recovery’ and real and meaningful growth will come from the small business sector, but that is unlikely to happen for some time yet, as many firms are struggling to survive, due to cashflow difficulties; input costs from government-administered sectors and restricted access to credit.”
Business group Chambers Ireland said the figures offered grounds for optimism.
"The number of people on the Live Register is still too high, however the fact that seasonally adjusted figures have once again declined, combined with Ireland's strong performance on exports provides some optimism amidst a lot of bad news," said chief executive Ian Talbot.
