Number on Live Register at lowest level since July 2008

The number of claimants on the Live Register fell again last month, mirroring the drop in unemployment.

The latest monthly figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) show the number of people signing on dropped by 3,100 (1.3 per cent) in April, bringing the seasonally adjusted total to 229,600, its lowest level since July 2008.

While the register is not a measure of unemployment, as people with part-time work can be entitled to benefits, it reflects conditions in the labour market.

Unemployment fell to a new post-crash low of 5.9 per cent in April, according to separate figures from the CSO published this week, and has now declined by nearly 10 percentage points from the the 15.9 per cent recorded in December 2011.

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On a seasonally-adjusted basis the latest Live Register shows a monthly decrease of 2,100 men and 1,000 women in April. The number of long-term unemployed people on the Live Register at the end of April was 92,709, which equated to an annual fall of nearly 17 per cent.

There were 48,127 casual and part-time workers on the register, which represented 21.5 per cent of the total.

The percentage of under-25s on the register now stands at 10.8 per cent, down from 11.3 per cent in April 2017 and 12.1 per cent in April 2016.

A breakdown of the figures shows craft workers remained the largest occupational group on the register, accounting for 17.6 per cent, despite the fact that the number in the group fell over the year by 8,625 to 39,454.