Notes on the Front

Commentary on Irish Political Economy by Michael Taft, researcher for SIPTU

Follow up to Jobs Crisis Post – February 10th

A quick follow-up to the post earlier today on the jobs crisis.  In it I referred to one of the reasons why people 'sign-off'' the Live Register – administrative reasons.  Some of this is down to people exhausting their Jobseekers' Benefit but unable to comply with the means-test for Jobseekers' Allowance (e.g. a working spouse, a private pension, etc.).

On foot of this post, Deputy Leo Varadkar's office forwarded me some numbers on this issue they received via a Parliamentary Question.  The following is the number in 2009 who failed the means-test:

  • April: 1,964
  • May: 2,191
  • June: 2,036
  • July: 2,499
  • August: 2,317
  • September: 2,859

'These numbers don' t necessarily refer to the particular situation of people coming off of Benefit, but includes all categories of applicants.

What's interesting, apart from the fact that the number of rejections increased by over 45 percent in the period between April and September, is that of the increase in Jobseekers' Allowance, nearly 25 percent were rejected.  In September, the number of those on Allowance actually declined while rejections soared to nearly 2,900.

We shouldn't be surprised if these numbers increase – and these don't count those who don't even apply for Assistance under the belief (mistakenly or not) that they wouldn't pass the means test. It's one way to 'stabilise unemployment'.

Thanks to Deputy Varadkar's office for this helpful information.

4 responses to “Follow up to Jobs Crisis Post – February 10th”

  1. Barry Avatar
    Barry

    Michael,
    Do you know of anyway to measure how many people have taken option (f), emigration?
    A lot of talk about the 60,000 under 25s that have gone. Where did this figure come from. Moreover, what about the over 25s?

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  2. MichaelBurke Avatar
    MichaelBurke

    Michael,
    a valuable post. The ‘turning the corner’ argument is a self-deception at best.
    The Q3 National Household Survey shows that employment has declined by 200,000 since Q2 2007, 25,000 of those in the latest quarter. Unemployment has risen by 205,000 over those 6 quarters, 17,000 in the latest quarter. In addition, 14,000 women are back in the home doing domestic labour and an addtional 18,000 workers have either retired or fallen into another economically inactive category. So, over the entire period those in work have declined by 200,000 while the total potential labour force has actually increased by 39,000. The unemployed total significantly understates the level of non-employment.
    On emigration, the total workforce had been growing at an annualised rate of 60,000+ (to mid-08). Since that time, the total workforce has declined by 7,000. A series of factors comes into play but emigration will be a major one in that change.

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  3. Michael Taft Avatar
    Michael Taft

    Barry – estimating current emigration patterns is guesswork at best due to the lack of up-to-date data. The CSO only publishes its migration estimates on annual basis. The last showed outward migration rose to 65,000 in the year ending April 2009, of which 28% were Irish nationals. It would be surprising if this figure is does not increase by next April’s data.
    Other methods used to estimate emigration numbers is to analyse labour force numbers in the quarterly household suvey, passenger numbers from airports/seaport, PPSN numbers, etc. But none of these are wholly satisfactory and any numbers would come with considerable caveats. As for the particular age-based number, I don’t know where that comes from but it would come from some of these extrapolations. We will get a better idea next April but the debate would be better informed by more current numbers – even if on a quaterly basis.
    I will try to get on to some people with a better read on the issue and get back to you. Michael Burke’s comments provide some of the background stats on this issue.

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  4. Barry Avatar
    Barry

    Thanks Michael. I left Ireland myself about a year ago and have often wondered if I have been counted in the numbers.

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Commentary on Irish Political Economy by Michael Taft, researcher for SIPTU