THE NUMBER OF people in employment has fallen by 1.8 per cent in the past year, bringing the total number of those in employment to 1,787,900.

New figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) show that 33,400 people became unemployed in Ireland in the year to the second quarter of 2012.

Of those who became unemployed during this period, 18,600 were men (-1.9 per cent) and 14,800 were women (-1.7 per cent).

On a seasonally adjusted basis, employment fell by 13,700 (-0.8 per cent) in the quarter, following on from a seasonally adjusted decrease in employment of 10,300 (-0.6 per cent) during the first three months of 2012. Overall, unemployment increased by 4,000 (+1.3 per cent) in the year to Q2 2012, bringing the total number of unemployed persons to 308,500.

Sectors

Employment fell in ten of the fourteen economic sectors over the year, with the greatest rates of decline recorded in the administrative and support services (-8.8 per cent or 5,800). Meanwhile, employment in financial, insurance and real estate activities fell by 7 per cent (-7,300) and construction saw a 6.5 per cent (-6,900) drop in employment.

However, the CSO figures show that the greatest actual decline in the number of persons in employment in a sector was recorded in the wholesale and retail trade/repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles sector, where employment was down by 2.8 per cent (-7,500) year-on-year.

The largest increase was recorded in the accommodation and food service activities sector, where employment rose by 5.9 per cent (+6,300).

Long-term unemployment

Meanwhile, the results of the Quarterly National Household Survey show that the long-term unemployment rate increased from 7.7 per cent to 8.8 per cent over the year to Q2 2012.

Long-term unemployment accounted for 59.9 per cent of total unemployment in Q2 2012 compared with 53.9 per cent a year earlier and 43.3 per cent in the second quarter of 2010, according to the figures, while the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate remained unchanged over the quarter (14.8 per cent).

The total number of people in the labour force in the second quarter of 2012 was 2,096,400 – representing a decrease of 29,500 (-1.4 per cent) over the year.

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