Dole queues continued to shorten in July, but retail spending weakened further in June, according to two new sets of data published by the Central Statistics office.

The numbers claiming unemployment benefit fell 3,200 between June and July, bringing the claimant count below 420,000 for the first time in four years. Since peaking almost two years ago, the number of unemployed and underemployed people on welfare has fallen by 30,000.

A separate estimate of the rate of unemployment that the CSO derives from the claimant data shows that 13.5 per cent of the workforce was formally out of work in July. In June the rate was 13.6 per cent.

At its post-crash peak at the beginning of last year, the jobless rate was 15 per cent.

Despite the gradual improvement in the labour market, there has been a protracted, albeit mild, weakening in consumer spending.

Slightly less timely retails sales figures, which were also published by the CSO this morning, show that between May and June all main measures of spending by consumers in retail outlets fell.

The core measure of retail sales, which excludes auto sales, fell by around half a percentage point on a month on month basis when measured both by total value of sales and total volume.

Both data sets are adjusted by statisticians to strip out seasonal volatility so that trends can be seen more clearly.