The latest figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) shows that the seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate for December fell to 6.2% from 6.4% in the previous month, and a near 10 percentage point improvement from the peak of 15.9% hit in late 2011 during the financial crisis. Furthermore, Ireland’s jobless rate is two-and-a-half percentage points below the current Eurozone average of 8.7%.
The figures show that full-time employment grew by 6.9% year on year (yoy) in the third quarter 2017, the fastest pace ever seen in the data going back to 1998. The level of employment stood at 2.19m in the third quarter 2017. This is 6% higher than the previous estimate for the second quarter 2017 and leaves employment levels just 2% lower than the peaks reached in the fourth quarter 2017. Goodbody Stockbrokers believe this peak is likely to be exceeded in 2018.
Today's figures show that ten of the fourteen sectors of the Irish labour market are now growing employment on an annual basis. This broad-based growth has been a consistent theme for almost four years. The fastest growing sectors are Administrative and support services (+10% yoy), education (+9% yoy) and construction (+7% yoy).
Source: www.businessworld.ie
