I am going to try to increase the frequency of posts about unemployment. The Live Register figures are out today and I think these marginal dips are not something people should be getting too excited about, particularly given the overall trend toward longer unemployment durations. Constantin Gurdgiev gives a
useful summary of the numbers on his blog. I hope that one outcome of the negotiations will be a more prominent concern for this issue, particularly addressing concern that failure to integrate into the labour market has lifetime consequences for young people and also that unemployment duration spells have scarring effects at all ages.
The national vs. non-national distinction is interesting but what is probably more important is the term structure i.e. the increasing importance of long term unemployment. Thats where the damage gets done.
ReplyDeleteAgree with you - this should capture a lot more of the media attention.
ReplyDeleteAgree with your sentiment Liam. The figure announced yesterday (for February) was a (seasonally adjusted standardised) unemployment rate of 13.5%; so no different from January, which was also 13.5%.
ReplyDeleteCSO Stats
From what I can see there was not too much media coverage yesterday; coalition talks between Fine Gael and Labour (and international events) are probbaly getting a lot of the focus.
However, in previous months there has certainly been undue attention given to one percentage point changes in the rate. At the moment, the rate of 13.5% is above last year's annual average of 13.3%.