This article is from page 6 of the 2011-03-08 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 6 JPG
COUNTY Clare is lagging behind the rest of the country in terms of job creation, with the recession now likely to linger in the Banner County when job growth returns in other areas.
New figures releases from the Central Statistic Office (CSO) revealed that 10,814 people signed on the Live Register in Clare last month, the second highest amount recorded in Clare since records began.
The number of people signing on the Live Register nationally has fallen by 22,624 or 4.51 per cent since the peak of the unemployment crisis in August of 2010. However, the number of people signing on in Clare has actually increased by almost one per cent (0.81 per cent) over the same period.
This means that the rate of change in the numbers signing on in Clare is more than 5 per cent worse than the number signing on in the rest of the country.
According to CSO figures, 10,814 people signed onto the Live Register in Clare last month, a drop of 69 peo- ple from the January figures.
More than half of all those people signing on were located in Ennis, where 5,998 people signed on last month. This represents a small drop of 0.34 per cent or 21 people since January.
Similar small drops were recorded around the county with offices in Ennistymon, Tulla and Kilrush reporting 1,747, 1,568 and 1,501 people signing on respectively.
While the news is bad in Clare, Seán Murphy of Chamber Ireland believe that the figures indicate a stabilisation of the unemployment levels nationally.
“The seasonally adjusted Live Register figures provide another indication of an ongoing stabilisation in the economy. While this suggests that we are slowly turning our economy and jobs market around, clearly much needs to be done to reduce unemployment levels further,” he said.
Chambers Ireland has called on the new Government to abolish Employment Regulation Orders (ERO) and Registered Employment Agreements (REA) as a means of prompting jobs growth.