Number signing on tops 400,000 for the first time
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THE number of people signing on the live register has surpassed the 400,000 mark for the first time ever as unemployment soared to a 13-year high.
On a seasonally adjusted basis, 402,100 were on the live register last month -- an increase of 13,500 on the April figure, new figures from the Central Statistics Office reveal.
It is the first time the numbers have reached this level and shows a massive 96.7pc unadjusted increase in the figures compared to the same time last year.
The unemployment rate of 11.8pc is also at its highest rate since 1996 and compares with a rate of just 7.7pc in the fourth quarter of last year. Twice as many men as women are now signing on, with an estimated 66,000 casual and part-time workers on the register last month.
ISME, the organisation representing small- and medium-sized companies, said the "appalling" figures confirmed their worst fears.
The group warned that unless the Government stopped its "dithering", half a million people would be out of work by the end of the year.
ISME chief executive Mark Fielding said an emergency action plan was needed.
But business and employers' body IBEC was a little more hopeful. Chief economist David Croughan said that while the unemployment rate was worryingly high, the figures suggested the pace of job losses was probably slowing. "Although the live register is not designed to measure unemployment, because it includes people on part-time and seasonal work, it nevertheless does suggest some slowing down in the pace of job losses," he said.
Redundancies
But Mr Croughan warned that redundancies in the first five months of the year were 166pc higher than in 2008 and there was a need for the Government to introduce supports for enterprise.
The Irish Congress of Trade Unions said the soaring unemployment figures were a clear indictment of failed government policies and called for an immediate €1bn allocation to protect and create jobs.
"This unemployment crisis could have been avoided had Government not pursued tax-cutting during a property boom, the liberalisation, privatisation and deregulation agenda and massive subsidies to property speculators," congress economic adviser Paul Sweeney said. "We need to respond quickly to this crisis or we face the prospect of losing a generation to unemployment."
The Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed (INOU) also hit out at the figures and said the economic cost for the unemployed, their families and the country were "potentially overwhelming".
Brid O'Brien, head of INOU's policy and media, said: "If the Government can find the necessary money to bail out the banks, then it is time they found the money to generate alternative employment."
- Fergus Black
