Ireland Highest Unemployment Expenditure

Irish Unemployment

Ireland has the highest expenditure rate on unemployment in the EU, according to the European Commission’s statistics agency Eurostat. It found Ireland spends twice the European average on unemployment costs.

The Department of Social Protection said the figures reflected the complexity of unemployment-related expenditure and not just jobseekers’ allowance payments.

Eurostat said government spending on unemployment was highest in Ireland at 7.6 per cent of total expenditure in 2014, more than double the EU average of 3.2 per cent.

The next highest proportion was in Spain (6.7 per cent), then Denmark (5.9 per cent) and followed by Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands, all at 4.3 per cent.

The department said the figures also reflected the differences in the rates of unemployment between member states.

According to the latest Monthly Unemployment report, there were 208,100 people unemployed in June, representing a decline of 35,900. This monthly report is new and builds on the definitions used in the Quarterly National Household Survey i.e. it captures people who are actively seeking work and available to take up work; while the Live Register captures people in receipt of a Jobseekers payment and signing-on for credits. In June 2015 19.5% of the people on the Register were casual and part-time workers.

In June 2015 there were 166,488 people on the Live Register for more than a year, 22,370 less people than in the same month last year, but still representing 46.7% of the Register. 

In May 2015 there were 80,888 people on activation programmes, 4,715 more people than in the same month in 2014. The biggest increase in activation programmes was in the employment programmes, an increase of 3,849.

Amongst the programmes that saw a rise in participation were Community Employment, Tús, Gateway, and the Back to Work Enterprise Allowance. The employment programme which saw the biggest decrease was JobBridge, in May 2015 there were 5,778 people participating on this programme, 1,199 fewer people than in May 2014.   

The Central Statistics Office published the Quarterly National Household Survey, Quarter 1 2015. “While welcoming the annual increase in full-time employment and the drop in unemployment it is worth noting that Ireland still has a long way to go to reach the pre-crisis heights, when in late 2007 there were 2,169,600 people employed in Ireland,” said John Stewart, INOU Coordinator. “Of particular concern to us in the INOU is the fact that long-term unemployment, though falling, is four times higher now that it was in late 2007,” John concluded.