Live register at its lowest level in almost a decade

FIGURES for May released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) have shown the number of people on the live register across north and mid- Cork for the month was at its lowest level in almost a decade.

The CSO figures revealed the total number of people ‘signing on’ at the Mallow, Fermoy, Newmarket and Macroom social welfare offices during may stood at 4,545 – the lowest figure for the month in question since 2008.

In May of 2008 the combined total for the four offices stood 3,632.

However, within 12-months that figure had more than doubled to 7,901, reflecting the seismic changes that the wider Irish economy underwent following the collapse of the so-called ‘Celtic Tiger’.

Those reverberations continued to be felt across the region into 2010, with the combined total for the four offices in May of that year standing at a high of 9,340.

Within 12-months the first feeble shoots of a recovery began to be felt, with the number of people on the register at the end of May 2011 dropping slightly to 8,921.

Since then the figure has continued to from with each passing year, with the combined number of people signing on the register in the four offices standing at 4,545.

As of May 31 the total for Mallow stood at 1,401, Fermoy 1,374, Newmarket 878 and Macroom 892.

This represents an overall reduction of 51.3% from the peak figure in 2010.

The decrease mirrored the tend across Cork County, with the number of people on the live register across the county at the end of last month standing at 23,445– a reduction of 47.7% on the figure for May 2010 of 44,855.