Employment Grows By Almost 4%

In the second quarter of 2007 there were 2,095,400 people in employment, representing an annual increase of 78,400 or 3.9%.

This compares to an annual growth rate of 3.8% in the previous quarter and to a rate of 4.6% in the second quarter of 2006.

These figures, taken from the latest Quarterly National Household Survey from the Central Statistics Office, show that there was an annual increase of just under 34,000 or 2.9% in the number of men at work, while the number of women increased by over 44,000 or 5.2%, accounting for almost 57% of the overall increase in employment.

The number of people in part-time employment increased by 27,500 and accounted for just over 35% of the overall annual change.

The figures from the CSO also show that construction employment increased by 6.7% between June 2006 and June 2007, despite the recent slowdown in the housing market.

Demographic factors such as the increase in the number of people of working age in the population continued to fuel labour force growth accounting for just under 64,000 of the 85,800 people who joined the labour force in the year to the second quarter of 2007.

Net inward migration accounted for approximately 70% of this demographic increase.

Over 52% of the demographic increase can be attributed to those aged 25-34, the age group most affected by inward migration.

The report also shows that there were 59,100 men and 39,600 women unemployed in the second quarter of 2007, representing annual increases of 3,900 and 3,500 for men and women respectively.

The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for men increased from 4.6% to 4.7% between the first and second quarters of 2007 while the rate for women rose from 4.1% to 4.3% over the same period.

All of the annual increase in unemployment was attributable to short-term unemployment with increases of 4,600 and 4,000 for males and females respectively.

The number of people in long-term unemployment fell by 1,200 over the year to 28,400.

The long-term unemployment rate decreased slightly from 1.4% to 1.3% in the year to the second quarter of 2007.