Slight rise in unemployment

A slight increase in registered unemployed was recorded last month compared to October 2005.

Figures released by the National Statistics Office show that the number of registered unemployed increased by 50 and reached 7,171 last month.

The vast majority of them - 6,394 - were registered under Part One of the unemployment register, which means they are either new job seekers who have left school, those going back into the labour market or people who have been made redundant by their former employers.

The highest number of registered unemployed were aged between 30 and 44, followed by the over 45-year-olds.

The NSO figures show that almost half the registered unemployed - 3,212 - had been registering for under 20 weeks. Another 1,459 had been registering for work for between 21 and 52 weeks while the remaining 2,500 had been on the register for more than a year.

The statistics show that 329 of those registering under Part One were persons with a disability.

The NSO said there was no change in the registered unemployment rate between last June and the same month last year. In both cases the rate stood at 4.8 per cent of the labour supply, with the unemployment rate for men being 5.4 per cent while that for women was 3.6 per cent.

The rate of unemployment in June was higher among under 25-year-olds - 7.5 per cent - than among the over 45-year-olds, which stood at 3.9 per cent.

The NSO said the long-term unemployment rate in June, which refers to people who had been registering for work for over one year, stood at 1.8 per cent.