Headline unemployment in the Irish economy edged higher for the fifth month in a row in July but remained close to the record low of 4 per cent, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) said on Tuesday.
The unemployment rate rose to 4.7 per cent – the highest level since March 2022 – from 4.5 per cent in June and from 4.3 per cent in July 2023, according to the latest data.
Economists consider an unemployment rate of 4 per cent or less in the Irish labour market as tantamount to full employment.
Some 136,100 people were categorised as unemployed in July, compared with 129,000 in June 2024, said Conor Delves, a statistician in the CSO’s labour market analysis division.
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“There was an increase of 16,200 in the seasonally adjusted number of people unemployed in July 2024 when compared with a year earlier,” he said.
In July, the unemployment rate for men was 4.5 per cent and a higher 4.8 per cent for women. The youth unemployment rate, meanwhile, increased to 11.4 per cent in July from 10.4 per cent, the CSO said.
Tuesday’s figures highlight the strength of the Republic’s labour market in the face of headwinds from higher interest rates and still-rising prices.
“Growth momentum in the Irish economy remains strong and this continues to support a solid level of hiring demand,” said Jack Kennedy, senior economist at hiring platform Indeed, despite an ongoing “softening” of labour market conditions.
Job postings on the platform were down 22 per cent year-on-year as of July 26th, he said, although they remain 15 per cent higher than pre-pandemic numbers in February 2020.
“The data also show a significant drop in job postings in Dublin, which are now 11 per cent below pre-pandemic levels,” Mr Kennedy said. “This makes the capital the only county in Ireland where job postings are below pre-pandemic levels and is partly a reflection of Dublin’s greater exposure to slowdowns in professional categories.”
Andrew Webb, chief economist at Grant Thornton Ireland, said recent gradual increases in the unemployment rate suggest a “trend is forming”. Against this backdrop, he said the Government’s budget planning should be “increasingly mindful of the headwinds in the labour market and plan accordingly”.
In its most recent quarterly economic bulletin, the Central Bank said in June that it expects the jobless rate to remain low at around 4.5 per cent for the full year and out to 2026, “signalling the economy is operating at full employment”.
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