This article is from page 9 of the 2014-02-11 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 9 JPG
THE number of people signing on the live register in Clare has increased for the third straight month – with North Clare continuing to return worrying statistics.
While a slight increase in the live register is normally seen in January, with temporary Christmas workers returning to the list – the concentration of continued poor live registers results from the Ennistymon area office have been seen by many as a cause for concern.
Indeed, nearly half of the entire increase reported in Clare last year was recorded in North Clare. The number of people signing on at the Ennistymon Social Welfare office increase from 1, 541 to 1,605 – a month on month increase of more than 4 per cent or 64 people.
The number of people signing on in the county as a whole increase by 133, amounting to a county wide average increase of just 1.4 per cent. This increase was largely driven by the number from Ennistymon.
The Ennis figures showed a increase of just 1.09 per cent with the number of people signing on increasing by 56, from 5,111 to 5,167 people.
The increase was even less in Tulla and Kilrush which recorded increases of just 0.5 per cent and 0.4 per cent respectively. The live register figures from Ennistymon have been increasing quicker than anywhere else in the county in recent months.
It had been thought that this increase was due to the areas dependence on the tourism sector. However, the continuation of the trend long past the end of the tourist season has caused some in the region to worry about long term difficulty.
Despite this results from Ennistymon, the overall outlook remains positive with last month recording the lowest number of people on the live register in January since 2009.