New Live Register: Unemployment is 11.9%

Time Magazine

Live Register figures were released in the past couple of hours.

11.9% unemployment. 21,721 more people on the Live Register, 11,400 when seasonally adjusted.

There's going to be a lot of talk about second derivatives as the increase in unemployment was 0.3% this month as opposed to 0.4% last month and 0.5% last month. Consequently expect TV3 to claim unemployment is falling.

"In the year to June 2009, there was an unadjusted increase of 197,781 (+89.6%). This compares with an unadjusted increase of 195,115 (+96.7%) in the year to May 2009."

The problem is not getting less severe. The percentage figures suggest the increase is not as severe but look at the actual numbers: 2,500 increase on the increase. The second derivative percentage is mostly because the denominator was so high tbh. It's just admitting we've been in this mess for a while.

Dob74

If unemployment is 413k and there are 2000k working. Total workforce 2413k.
Why is the unemployment 11.9% and not 17.1%?
What does the percentage figure leave out?

What a mess we are in:(

Time Magazine

The Live Register does not measure unemployment.

Edit: I should be more specific. The Live Register includes some people who can only find part-time work.

gurramok

Its going to go up further in the coming months with an army of school and college leavers looking for jobs(unless they emigrate)

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2009/0701/breaking30.htm

He said 18.7 per cent of the labour force was now on the live register, and said this was up from 7.2 per cent in 2007.

So at least one-fifth find money tight hence consumer spending decreasing.

Économiste Monétaire

This is really starting to affect private consumption (down 9.9%, on volume terms, from Q1: 2008 to Q1: 2009) and if one were to believe that unemployment will be in the range of 15-17% then that's not a pretty picture. I echo the points on the illusion of nice second derivatives.

tedstriker

Here are these figures in chart form (doesn't make them any better I'm afraid):

http://www.statusireland.com/statistics/finacial-statistics-for-ireland/31/Seasonally-Adjusted-Standarised-Unemployment-Rates-SUR.html

http://www.statusireland.com/statistics/recentlychanged/28/Irish-Live-Register-Figures.html