Employment: The census puts the unemployment rate for the State in April 2002 at 8.8 per cent, considerably higher than other measures of unemployment.
It shows Donegal as the county with the highest unemployment rate at 15.6 per cent, followed by Limerick City at 13.9 per cent and Louth at 13.2 per cent.
Social and economic details of the census, on April 28th, 2002, were published yesterday, and show a higher level of unemployment than other surveys or the live register.
This is because the census relies solely on the answers of people when asked what is their economic position. The other main method of measuring unemployment - the quarterly household survey - only counts people as unemployed if they are available for and actively seeking work.
The census unemployment figure of 8.8 per cent - or 159,000 people - is more than twice the quarterly survey rate of 4.2 per cent (77,000 for the same period). This indicates that a substantial number of people defined themselves in the census as unemployed, but were not actively seeking work.
However, the difference between the two figures is greater than would normally be expected, and the census figure is higher than other separate quarterly figures published by the CSO and designed to be compiled on a similar basis to the census.
The census data, available on the CSO website, also provides a wealth of detail on the breakdown of employment and unemployment regionally and across sectors. Notably it identifies 88 electoral divisions as unemployment " blackspots" where the rate is over 20 per cent. The 88 districts had an average unemployment rate of 24 per cent.
All the major cities contained a significant number of blackspots. As well as having the highest unemployment rate, Donegal also has the higher number of electoral divisions which could be considered as blackspots.
At individual level, Knocknalower, adjacent to Belmullet, Co Mayo, had the highest unemployment rate at 40.1 per cent in April of last year, followed by John's A in Limerick City (37.7 per cent) and An Geata Mór Theas (37.4 per cent), also near Belmullet.
Three Galway divisions, Lettermore, Skannive and Gorumna, had the next highest rates.
The lowest unemployment rates were in Dún Laoghaire- Rathdown (5.7 per cent), Kildare (6.2 per cent) and Cork County (6.4 per cent)
Eastern counties had the highest numbers in the "A" social classification of owners and managers, with Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown (26.3 per cent in the "A" category), Fingal (22.4 per cent), Kildare (19.8 per cent), Meath( 19.3 per cent) and Wicklow (19.3 per cent) topping the list.
The lowest rates were in Tipperary South (11.6 per cent), Limerick City (11.7 per cent) and Cork City ( 11.7 per cent).
Employees worked an average of 38 hours in the week before census day, with males working 42.3 hours on average and females 32.2 hours.
The data also showed that while males were making some inroads into traditionally female jobs such as receptionists, child minders and nurses, females represented a much smaller proportion of the total in traditionally male craft occupations.
