CSO jobs figures reflect emigration and stagnant employment market

‘The marginal fall in the Live Register can be accounted for and is overshadowed by the number of people who emigrated in March.’

UNLESS there is a significant change in the economic policy of the Fine Gael/Labour Government this decade will be known economically as “Ireland’s lost decade”, Sinn Féin Jobs spokesperson Peadar Tóibín said today after the latest unemployment figures from the Central Statistics Office.

The CSO reports a dip in the number on the dole with 2,200 fewer people claiming benefits last month. There’s still more than 426,000 people on the Live Register although it shows a drop of 10,000 on a year ago.

The standardised unemployment rate is unchanged from February, at 14%.

Peadar Tóibín TD said:

“The marginal fall in the Live Register can be accounted for and is overshadowed by the number of people who emigrated in March.

“Long-term unemployment and under-employment, two significant indicators of poverty, are on the increase.

“Under Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Labour, we have suffered five years of falling or static growth, historically high emigration and a stagnant jobs market.

 “We see this week that the peripheral economies are being economically nailed down by the imposition of austerity for the protection of the European core, resulting in increasing unemployment throughout the Eurozone.”

Fine Gael and Labour are more than enthusiastically delivering on austerity as a policy choice in Ireland “to the detriment of this generation”, he said.

The Meath West TD repeated Sinn Féin’s call for a genuine stimulus package to create jobs and fuel the economy.