Monday, November 30, 2009

Long-Term Unemployment in Ireland: Duration Analysis of the Live Register

According to an article in the Irish Independent over the weekend, the number of long-term unemployed in Ireland increased by 55% in the year ending October (2009). The article also states that the long-term jobless rate now stands at 2.6%.
"The long-term unemployment figure will continue rising in the next couple of years before peaking at 5%," said National Irish Bank chief economist Ronnie O'Toole.
Friday's publication from the Irish Central Statistics Office (CSO) is available here: "Live Register Age by Duration". Duration analysis of the Live Register is conducted twice a year by the CSO; the current series of half-yearly analyses was introduced in April 1989. The analysis historically related to the second-last Friday of April and October, but there was a minor change in the most recent analysis. (More on this in the comments).

According to the RTE website, the CSO said all age groups showed an increase in the number of long-term claimants in the six months from April to October (2009), with the biggest rise of 53% coming among the under 20's.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

New collection methods, employed by the Department of Social and Family Affairs (DSFA) for the compilation of the Live Register, have permitted the age by duration analysis to match the corresponding end of month Live Register totals from October 2009. This has led to a slight
break in series.

Liam Delaney said...

thanks martin - good posts on this stuff,

Anonymous said...

The other thing I wanted to highlight is that there are 412,407 people currently on the Live Register, but not all of these receive a payment of €204 a week. Some receive more; others less.

JB and JA rates are made up of a weekly personal rate of €204.30 and increases for a Qualified Adult (€135.60), and Qualified Children (€26). Furthermore, there is much variability in the weekly personal rate of €204.30.

If previous earnings were lower than 300 euro per week, and if there is any current employment (anywhere from 1 to 3 days per week), then a reduced personal rate of JB is paid.

If there is any current employment (anywhere from 1 to 3 days per week), and dependent on some intricate means-testing, then a reduced personal rate of JA is paid.

As at end-October 2009, there were 168,488 JB claimants, 226,550 JA applicants and 17,369 other Live Register (LR) registrants - amounting to a total of 412,407.

However, we do not know (from publicly available information) how many (if any) days any of these people are working. Or any other information about dependents; means-testing etc. In summary, we do not know the average (and distribution of) monetary payment to those on the Live Register.

I was wondering if anyone has any thoughts on this; are DFSA the only people who have this information? Also, does anyone have any insights into the particulars of the 17,369 "other" Live Register (LR) registrants? Any comments would be very welcome.

Some people may find it helpful to see the definitions of job-seeker's benefit (JB) and job-seeker's allowance (JA) again. These are below, taken from welfare.ie, as per a previous post.

To qualify for JB, a person must be unemployed for at least 3 days in 6 and must suffer a substantial loss of employment and be available for work and looking for work. Unemployed persons who are classified as casual workers do not have to have suffered a substantial loss of employment.

JA is a means-tested payment made to people who are unemployed and who do not qualify for Jobseeker's Benefit or whose entitlement to Jobseeker's Benefit has expired.