The number of people signing on the Live Register is at the lowest level since January 2008, new figures from the Central Statistics Office show.
The CSO said the Live Register total recorded a monthly decrease of 1,100 in December, which brought the seasonally adjusted total to 185,300.
In unadjusted terms, a total of 181,996 people were signing on the Live Register last month, down 8.9% on the same time the previous year.
Earlier this week, the CSO said the unemployment rate for December was unchanged at 4.8% – the lowest level in almost 13 years. The jobless figure has been steady at 4.8% for three months in a row.
Today’s CSO figures show that the number of men signing on decreased by 8.5% to 102,878 in the year to December 2019, while the number of women fell by 9.3% to 79,118.
Meanwhile, the percentage of people aged under 25 on the Live Register stood at 10.1% in December, up from 10% in December 2018 and down from 10.4% in December 2017.
The Live Register is not designed to measure unemployment as it includes part-time workers – those who work up to three days a week – as well as seasonal and casual workers entitled to Jobseeker’s Benefit (JB) or Jobseeker’s Allowance (JA).
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