The number of people on the Live Register dropped further in April, according to new figures released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO).
The seasonally adjusted Live Register total decreased by 2.2 per cent to 177,100 in April, down 3,900 from March.
The unadjusted total stood at 177,004 for April 2022, with 55 per cent male and 79.3 per cent Irish.
Almost half of those on the Live Register last month were either aged between 25 and 34 (22.4 per cent) or 35 and 44 (23.7 per cent).
The Live Register is not designed to measure unemployment, and includes part-time, seasonal and casual workers entitled to jobseeker’s payments.
The CSO has also released figures relating to the number of people estimated to have been directly supported by the Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme (EWSS) in March.
This number stood at 263,770, meaning a total of 436,056 people were on the Live Register or benefiting from the Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) or the EWSS in March 2022 – down from 907,800 in March 2021.
This is the lowest number recorded since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Low point
The PUP scheme has now ended, with final payments issued the week ending March 25th 2022. All PUP recipients have now either transferred to a jobseeker’s payment or had their PUP claim closed.
CSO Statistician Morgan O’Donnell explained the availability of EWSS data depends on an employee’s pay frequency and the time it takes for employers to lodge payslip data with the Revenue Commissioners, resulting in a lag in CSO estimates.
“In March 2022, 436,056 persons were on the Live Register or were benefiting from the PUP, TWSS or the EWSS,” he said.
“Of those, 50.1 per cent were male and 49.9 per cent were female, while 19.8 per cent were aged under 25 and 80.2 per cent were aged 25 years and over.
“The number of persons supported by all schemes was down from the 907,800 recorded in March 2021. March 2022 is the current low point of the series, while February 2022 (466,745) is the next lowest point of the series.
“The current high point of the series was reached in April 2020 (1,179,449).”
