The seasonally adjusted Live Register total for March 2023 was 180,500 persons, down by 1,600 or 0.9% from February 2023.
The unadjusted Live Register total stood at 179,777 persons for March 2023.
Of the 179,777 persons on the unadjusted Live Register in March 2023, 53.8% were male and 69.2% were Irish.
The 35-44 age group made up the largest number of those on the Live Register in March 2023 at 42,885 persons or 23.9%.
The counties that saw the largest percentage increase in the number of people on the Live Register in the 12 months to March 2023 were Kerry (29.4%) and Leitrim (27.2%).
The number of persons on the Live Register for one year or more in March 2023 was 61,827, down 6,885 from a year earlier. There were 117,950 persons (65.6%) on the Live Register for less than one year.
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.
| Total Persons on the Live Register - Unadjusted and Seasonally Adjusted | ||
| Live Register Total | Seasonally Adjusted | |
| March 2022 | 178,996 | 179,600 |
| February 2023 | 183,401 | 182,100 |
| March 2023 | 179,777 | 180,500 |
| Change in month | - | -1,600 |
| Change in year | 781 | - |
https://data.cso.ie/table/LRM15
*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.
The cessation of the PUP scheme particularly impacts the year-on year changes in Jobseeker’s Benefit claims with the number of recipients decreasing by 34.9% (-19,221) in March 2023 compared with 12 months 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 117,950 persons (65.6%) with a claim duration of less than one year (short-term) and 61,827 persons (34.4%) 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 65.5% and the proportion of long-term recipients increase to 34.5%. 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.
Data up to the end of February 2023 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.
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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.
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Statistician's Comment
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (11 April 2023) issued results from the Live Register in respect of March 2023.
Commenting on today’s publication, Conor Delves, Statistician in the Labour Market Analysis Section, said:
“The unadjusted Live Register total for March 2023 was 179,777. When seasonal effects are considered, the seasonally adjusted Live Register total for March 2023 was 180,500, a decrease of 1,600 persons from February 2023.
There were 23,295 people benefitting from the EU's Temporary Protection Directive included in the Live Register figures for March 2023, an increase of 119 from February 2023.”