Live register at lowest for more than a decade

FIGURES released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) for July have shown that the number of people on the live register across Cork county for the month was at its lowest level for more than a decade.

The latest report has shown that the total number of people ‘signing on’ the register at social welfare offices across the county during July stood at 20,935. This is the lowest total since 2007, when the figure for July of that year stood at 17,360.

However, the following year that total had jumped to 23,581, a very real and tangible reflection of the wider seismic changes experienced in employment and the wider Irish economy following the collapse of the so-called ‘Celtic Tiger’.

Over the following years the July totals on the live register continued to climb, peaking at 47,818 in 2010. 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 more than 4,160 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 2018 figure for the social welfare offices in Mallow, Fermoy, Newmarket and Macroom standing at 4,313. This was the first time that the combined total for the four offices in July had dropped below 5,000 since 2008, when it stood at 4,413.

Within 12 months that had almost doubled to 8,757 and continued to rise with each passing year, peaking at 9,988 in 2010.

Since then the July figure has continued to drop, albeit slowly over the first couple of year’s, with more dramatic reductions each year since 2014.

As at the end of July this year the combined total of 4,313 included 1,383 on the register in Mallow, 1,228 in Fermoy, 889 in Macroom and 813 in Newmarket.

This represents an overall reduction across the four offices of almost 57% from the peak figure in 2010.

Nationally, the number of people on the live register at the end of July stood at 234,445 representing an annual decrease of 39,940 (-14.6%) when compared to the same time last year.