Monthly Live Register Statistics.
Unemployment:
Unemployment:
The Department of Social Welfare is responsible for the data collection of this series. The Central Statistics Office is in charge of the statistical processing and publication of the data.
The data from this series cover the whole country based on returns from Local Employment Offices of the Department of Social Welfare. The lower age limit is 16 years if covered by social insurance, 18 if not insured and the maximum age limit is 64 years. All applicants for unemployment benefit, unemployment assistance or persons registering for reasons of entitlement to social security (i.e. to be credited with social insurance contributions) are covered.
The data from this series are also distributed according to sex and age groups, category of current claims, farmer or other category and by planning region. Data are also available seasonally adjusted, the seasonally adjusted series being revised every six months (in January and July).
The series is monthly and started in January 1967.
Unemployment: All persons who are registered at an employment office, who are without work, are capable of work and are available for full time employment as indicated in the Live Register, which covers three groups of persons: claimants for unemployment benefit, applicants for unemployment assistance and other applicants including those who register for reasons of entitlement to social security. There is no legal definition of full-time but it is generally taken to mean a working week of 40 hours.
Re-entrants to the workforce may be included in the registered unemployed if they have paid or been credited with at least one contribution during the past two years. It is not necessary for them to be entitled to benefit. However, many re-entrants may not bother to register as the benefits of doing so are limited. During their period of unemployment they will be credited with contributions. Persons who have not paid contributions for more than two years must work at least for the required 26 weeks in insurable employment to requalify for benefit; then be included in the register if they become unemployed.
Employable disabled persons may be included in the register under the same conditions as the able-bodied. Those seeking work however may apply directly to the Department of Labour, National Manpower Service (NMS) without registering at an employment office. Persons receiving invalidity benefits, however, are not included.
Persons fulfilling the conditions but who are also in receipt of other than retirement pensions are included; those drawing a retirement pension before the normal retirement age (early retirers) who have registered as seeking full-time work, may be included up to age 65. For the latter however, in practice they have little inducement to register since they are no longer insured against unemployment and as such cannot expect to receive unemployment pay.
Persons responsible for the loss of their last job or who leave their employment without just cause are disqualified from unemployment benefit for up to six weeks and from unemployment assistance for up to three months but will be included in the live register if they sign for credited social insurance contributions. Persons seeking an industrial training placement through the employment office are included if they are entitled to benefit. This is however seldom the case. Persons on temporary or indefinite lay-off without pay are included.
It is not possible to distinguish between persons seeking permanent and temporary work, however full-time students seeking vacation work would be excluded because they could not be entitled to unemployment benefit or assistance. Similarly first jobseekers (such as young young school-leavers) are not automatically included since they have no right to unemployment benefit (26 weekly contributions are required) or unemployment assistance (minimum age 18 years), unless they satisfy a means test.
Young persons seeking an industrial training placement must apply directly to the NMS, responsible for placement of workers, or to the Industrial Training Authority. These young persons who thus do not need to register at the employment office; State retirement or old age pensioners; and persons with some form of minimal employment seeking other work are not included in the registered unemployment statistics. Persons on strike may or may not be included depending on the circumstances. Persons taking part in State-assisted training schemes or job creation measures are not regarded as unemployed.
Under the Irish Social Welfare Act, nearly all employees from the age of 16 onwards must, regardless of the size of their income, be insured against unemployment.
Registration: Unemployment is considered to be 'proved' by signature at the local employment office of the Department of Social Welfare; therefore registration is compulsory. Attendance for the purpose of 'signing on' the register is required with varying frequencies depending on the distance between the local employment office and the unemployed persons' residence. Frequency is daily for persons living up to two miles from the employment office, twice a week for between two and four miles, and once a week for between four and six miles or over six miles in which case persons sign on at their local police station. The majority are required to sign at least weekly.
Deletion from the register: Registrants who fail to "sign on" for a given time, usually for four consecutive days after they are expected, are deleted from the register immediately.
Periods of temporary inability to work due to illness, accident, holidays or other reasons within a period of six days count as unemployment until the claimant has failed to 'sign on' for at least four consecutive days. If persons are so ill that they are unable to sign on they can obtain sickness benefit upon production of a medical certificate and then be removed from the register.
Entitlement to unemployment benefit or assistance ceases if an offer of suitable employment is refused. For benefit purposes suitable employment is with regard to age, sex, physical condition, training, occupation, place of residence and family circumstances. Similarly entitlement ceases if an offer of training provided by the National Training Authority (AnCO) is refused without good cause. These circumstances lead to removal from the register at least temporarily.
Deletion from the register automatically leads to the exclusion of those persons from the registered unemployment statistics.
The last Friday of the month. The data are generally compiled and published within five working days.
Local employment offices transmit a report form directly to the Central Statistics Office. The data is then carefully examined, collated and published. Each local employment office monitors its own register constantly. Persons not "signing on" daily have to sign a declaration covering each day since they last "signed on". Making a false declaration is a serious offence. After careful comparison of the data with previous returns, the figures are simply collated and published.
In addition to the end of month data, regular monthly and quarterly analyses of the live register are carried out: the monthly industrial analysis; the age analysis carried out in January, April, July and October, extended in April and October to include duration of registration; and the occupational analysis done in March, June, September and December. The occupational classification used is incompatible with the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO). In association with the industrial analysis, monthly flow statistics are also produced (and available since 1983).
Unemployment rates are computed and published monthly with the monthly count of persons on the live register. The unemployment rate is computed as the number unemployed expressed as a percentage of the estimate of the total economically active population including the armed forces as at mid-April of the same year, (or latest available estimate) derived from the Labour Force Survey.
In 1981 the unemployment rates were revised to represent the percentage of the total economically active population. Prior to 1981 a different series of percentages of unemployed relating the number of currently insured persons on the Live Register to the estimated currently insured population, excluding the agriculture, fishing and private domestic sectors were computed.
Central Statistics Office: "Monthly Live Register Statement" (Dublin, 1988). Each release is published on the Friday following the Friday to which the data relate.
idem: "Feasachán Staidrimh na Héireann" (Irish Statistical Bulletin) (quarterly) (Dublin, 1988). The latest data contained in each issue is for the previous quarter.
A full treatment of the various aspects of the Live Register statistics is given in the: "Report of the Inter-departmental Study Group on Unemployment Statistics", Prl. 7925 (Stationery Office, Dublin, April 1979).