Young worst hit as jobless rate ‘60 times worse than last crash’
:: More than half aged 15-24 without jobs
UNEMPLOYMENT almost doubled in April to a record high of 694,683 workers as a result of the economic lockdowns to contain the spread of coronavirus.
The latest data from the Central Statistics Office showed the unemployment rate stood at 28.2pc of the workforce in April, up from 15.5pc at the end of March once those who are receiving the €350-a-week pandemic unemployment payment are included.
The standard measure of underlying unemployment ticked higher to 132,900 people, or 5.4pc up from 5.3pc, the CSO said.
The hardest hit group was those aged between 15 and 24, where more than half were without jobs.
“The drop in employment in a little over a month has been about 60 times the scale seen on average through the downturn that followed the financial crisis. As a result, numbers at work in the Irish economy are currently back at levels last seen around 20 years ago,” said KBC Ireland chief economist Austin Hughes.
The unemployment numbers were published as the Government plots a way to reopen the economy and to cut pandemic payments.
The bill for temporarily suspended workers and those on wage support from the State is running at €4.5bn for the 12 weeks budgeted so far.
Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe defended the “high” level of the pandemic unemployment payment on a conference call organised by PwC in which questioners said the €350-a-week payment was acting as a disincentive for people to return to work.
Mr Donohoe said as the pandemic strengthened its grip on Ireland, he and other officials were confronted with a dynamic “without precedent” and which was changing “literally by the hour” and the most important issue was to get aid to workers as quickly as possible.
“Really concerning things could have happened with the standard of living of citizens who were finding themselves very quickly without a job, many of whom were correctly thinking they would never have to face a journey like that again,” he said.
The minister said he did understand the concerns now being raised by employers.
“But this is just a consequence of us having to get really bigger things right and quickly right,” he said.
The Government is set to examine over the next few weeks how to deal with this “in a fair and affordable way”, Mr Donohoe said.
Mr Hughes at KBC said a fall of up to 10pc in economic output after 5pc-plus growth in 2019 implied a hit of up to €50bn to incomes this year.
The biggest risk to the economy is not adding to State debt, Mr Hughes said, adding a rapid return to economic growth was key and that demanded a “fiscal stimulus that is both early and aggressive”.
“In this context, the overriding focus should be on supporting employment which means that stimulus measures concentrate on firms rather than households,” he said.
The Government has recently unveiled a package of loan guarantees and schemes to help business which have lifted the total potential support to more than 7pc of modified gross national income.