Jobless figures are at lowest for 13 years
CSO figures for September have revealed that the number of people on the live register across Cork County for the month was at its lowest level for 13-years.
According to the figures, there were 15,142 people ‘signing on’ at social welfare offices across the county during September – the first time that figure had dropped below the 16,000 mark since 2006, when it stood at 14,195.
The steady fall in the live register numbers has been reflected across north and mid-Cork, with the combined July 2019 figure for the social welfare offices in Mallow, Fermoy, Newmarket and Macroom standing at 3,149.
FIGURES compiled by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) for September have revealed that the number of people on the live register across Cork County for the month was at its lowest level for 13-years.
According to the figures there were 15,142 people ‘signing on’ at social welfare offices across the county during September – the first time that figure had dropped below the 16,000 mark since 2006, when it stood at 14,195.
The following year that number has increased by just over 1,000, a portent of what was to follow over the coming years as the so called’ Celtic Tiger’ began to show the first signs of faltering.
The seismic changes that were to blight the economy and employment really began to bite hard over the following 12-months, with the Cork live register figure for September 2008 rising to 23,753 – a year-on-year increase of 7,526 or 46 per cent.
The 12-month period between September 2008 and 2009 saw a that number increase by a staggering 79 per cent to 42,682 as the full impact of the recession hit home across the county.
The next 12-months also saw the number increase, albeit significantly less that the previous year, with the live register in Cork County standing at 45,538 as September 2010 drew to a close.
The gradual recovery across the employment sector has seen the monthly totals fall over each consecutive year since, with the figure for last month down by 2,196, or 16 per cent, when compared to 12-months earlier.
The steady fall in the live register numbers has been reflected across north and mid-Cork, with the combined July 2019 figure for the social welfare offices in Mallow, Fermoy, Newmarket and Macroom standing at 3,149.
This was the first time that the combined total for the four offices in September had dipped below 35,000 since 2008, when the combined total stood at 4,449.
The following years this figure had almost doubled to 8,558, with the September combined totals for the four offices peaking in 2010 at 9,582.
The figure for last month represents a 67 per cent reduction from its highest point in 2010.
Nationally, the number of people on the live register at the end of last month stood at 183,783, representing a year-on-year decrease of 21,947 or 10.5 per cent.