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Live Register January 2023

The seasonally adjusted Live Register decreased by 0.4% to 184,700 over the month to January 2023

Online ISSN: 200-535X
CSO statistical publication, , 11am

Key Findings

  • The seasonally adjusted Live Register total for January 2023 was 184,700 persons, down by 700 or 0.4% from December 2022.

  • The unadjusted Live Register total stood at 184,736 persons for January 2023.

  • Of the 184,736 persons on the Live Register in January 2023, 53.7% were male and 69.8% were Irish.

  • The 35-44 age group made up the largest number of those on the Live Register in January 2023 at 43,867 persons or 23.7%.

  • All counties saw an increase in the number of persons on the Live Register in the 12 months to January 2023.

  • The counties that saw the greatest increase in the number of people on the Live Register in the 12 months to January 2023 were Kerry (41.7%) and Leitrim (36.8%). The counties with the lowest increase in numbers on the Live Register were Kildare (1.6%) and Tipperary (2.6%).

  • The number of persons on the Live Register for one year or more in January 2023 was 61,003 - down 11,644 from a year earlier. There were 123,733 persons (67.0%) on the Live Register for less than one year.

Statistician's Comment

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (03 February 2023) issued results from the Live Register in respect of January 2023. 

Commenting on today’s publication, Morgan O’Donnell, Statistician in the Labour Market Analysis Section, said:

“The unadjusted Live Register total for January 2023 was 184,736. When seasonal effects are considered, the seasonally adjusted Live Register total for January 2023 was 184,700, a decrease of 700 persons from December 2022. There was an increase of 1,000 persons on the seasonally adjusted Live Register for January 2023 when compared with January 2020.

There were 22,877 people benefitting from the EU's Temporary Protection Directive included in the Live Register figures for January 2023, an increase of 1,094 from December 2022.”

Editor's Note

People arriving in Ireland from Ukraine under the EU's Temporary Protection Directive (TPD) can access a wide range of Department of Social Protection (DSP) supports. The majority of new applications for income support from people of working age are being processed as Jobseeker's Allowance (JA) claims until the most appropriate income support for that person is identified. This facilitates access to existing part-time work supports where appropriate. If a person is on JA for 20* claim paid days or more, they are counted on the Live Register.

*Before October 2022, persons availing of TPD were included in the Live Register when they had been in receipt of JA for 50 days or more.

Data in this release are subject to revision based on updates to the seasonally adjusted series whenever new monthly data are added, such revisions are typically very minor in scale. It should be noted that larger revisions can occur when the comprehensive annual review of the seasonal adjustment model is carried out in January of each year. See background notes for further details.

The seasonally adjusted Live Register decreased by 0.4% to 184,700 over the month to January 2023

Total Persons on the Live Register - Unadjusted and Seasonally Adjusted
 Live Register TotalSeasonally Adjusted
January 2022162,578162,700
December 2022184,642185,400
January 2023184,736184,700
 
Change in month--700
Change in year22,158-
Figure 1 Live Register Seasonally Adjusted
Table 1 Total Persons on the Live Register - Unadjusted and Seasonally Adjusted

All counties saw an increase in the number of persons on the Live Register in the 12 months to January 2023

                                                                                                                                                                                                 https://data.cso.ie/table/LRM15

The number of people claiming Jobseeker's Benefit rose 4.7% (1,717) in January 2023 compared with 12 months earlier

The number of Jobseeker's Allowance claims increased by 19.7% (21,362) in January 2023 compared with 12 months earlier.

The Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) scheme ended in March 2022; final payments issued were in respect of the week ending Friday 25 March 2022. All PUP recipients at that stage either transferred to a Jobseeker’s scheme or had their PUP claim closed, either because they did not apply for a jobseeker’s payment or they did not have an entitlement e.g. they were in receipt of another scheme payment or were pending a decision on their jobseeker claim. 

 

Figure 3 Persons on the Live Register classified by Social Welfare Scheme
Table 2 Total Persons on the Live Register classified by Age and Sex

The number of persons on the Live Register for one year or more in January 2023 was 61,003 - down 11,644 from a year earlier

Under the Economic Recovery Plan, some previous recipients of PUP transitioned to a jobseeker’s payment and are now appearing on the Live Register. The duration of Live Register claims is currently based on the length of time from the jobseeker’s (JA/JB) claim commencement date to the last week of the reference month and is presented in Table 3 of this release and in Tables LRM11 and LRM18 on PxStat. Using the current methodology there are 123,733 persons (67.0%) with a claim duration of less than one year (short-term) and 61,003 persons (33.0%) with a claim duration of one year or more (long-term). Taking the duration time on the PUP into account sees the proportion of short-term recipients drop to 66.1% and the proportion of long-term recipients increase to 33.9%. Any changes the CSO may make to the methodology for the calculation of duration in the future will be clearly outlined to users in the statistical release and accompanying material.

Figure 4 Persons on the Live Register classified by Detailed Duration
Table 3 Persons on the Live Register classified by Sex and Duration of Continuous Registration

Just over 10% (19,347) of those on the Live Register in January 2023 were aged under 25

Persons between the ages of 25 and 54 accounted for just over two-thirds of those on the Live Register in January 2023: 25–34-year-olds made up 22.6% of the total, 35–44-year-olds 23.7%, and the 45–54-year-olds 20.4%.

Figure 5 Persons on the Live Register classified by Age Group
Table 4 Summary of flows on and off the Live Register

Table 5 Casual and Part-time Workers on the Live Register

Table 6 Persons on the Live Register classified by Nationality Grouping

There were 37,089 persons availing of activation programmes in December 2022, which is a decrease of 2,548 persons (-6.4%) from the previous year, when there were 39,637 persons in these programmes.

Data up to the end of December 2022 on the number of persons availing of a range of programmes targeted primarily at the long-term unemployed (over 12 months) and other welfare recipients is provided in the Annex Table A1 – Number of persons availing of Activation Programmes table.

Persons on activation programmes are not counted as part of the monthly Live Register.

Annex Table A1 Number of Persons availing of Activation Programmes

Annex Table A2 Live Register total classified by Recipient and Non-Recipient

There were 22,877 people benefitting from the EU's Temporary Protection Directive (TPD) included in the Live Register figures for January 2023.

Just under two-thirds of those benefitting from TPD in January 2023 were female (15,052). Nearly 90% of all recipients (20,482) were over 25 years old.

Table A3 Total persons benefitting from the Temporary Protection Directive (Ukraine)

Additional Live Register Information

Detailed tables relating to the monthly estimates of the number of persons on Live Register classified by NUTS2 and NUTS3 regions are included in the CSO Main Data Dissemination Service LRM17 on PxStat.

Table LRM13 on PxStat includes the Live Register occupational data which is sourced from information collected by the DSP on the most recent occupation of claimants when they sign on the Live Register.