Retail trade is largest employer in County Louth

15% OF THOSE EMPLOYED WORK IN WHOLESALE OR RETAIL INDUSTRY

THE wholesale and retail trade in Louth is the biggest employment sector in the county, according to the latest figures released.

According to the latest report from the CSO Census, as of April 2016, the largest industrial sector in the county was the wholesale and retail trade, accounting for 8,012 workers (15.9%).

Human health and social work activities was the next largest, with 5,840 workers (11.6%).

The top five was completed by manufacturing (10.4%), education (9.1%) and accommodation and food service activities (5.4%).

The 1,347 persons working in the Agriculture, forestry and fishing sector (2.7%), was 83 more than in 2011. A further 2,638 persons (5.2%) were employed in the construction sector compared with 2,113 five years previously.

The census also revealed that the unemployment rate in the county has dropped dramatically over the past five years - down from 23.8% in April 2011 to 16.7% (10,058) in April 2016.

However, the unemployment rate in Louth remains higher than the national average recorded of 12.9%.

Of the unemployed in the county, 1,145 (11.4%) were firsttime job seekers.

Among Louth’s unemployed, 82.3% were Irish nationals, compared with 84.1% in 2011, while 17.7% were non-Irish nationals, up from 15.9% five years previously.

The report is the last in the series published by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) and covers Employment, Occupations and Industry.

The report shows that the number of people at work in Ireland in April 2016 increased to just over 2 million (+11.0%). The numbers of people looking after the home/family continued to decline, falling by 10.1% to 305,556 while the numbers of retired persons increased to 545,407, up 88,013 (19.2%) on 2011.

Deirdre Cullen, Senior Statistician, commented: ‘ This report analyses the world of work in Ireland in 2016, with a particular focus on changes in the numbers at work by occupations and industrial sectors. It also looks at the profile of the non-Irish national population in the workforce.

‘Profile 11 completes the suite of Census 2016 results which has included two summary reports, eleven detailed reports and Small Area Population Statistics. Together, these results provide a comprehensive picture of Ireland in April 2016. All of this data is now available on the CSO website.’

All of the reports are available at www.cso.ie/en/census/.

The reports include a range of interactive web tables, which allow users to build their own tables by selecting the data they are interested in and downloading them in an easy to use format for their own analysis.