Notes on the Front

In a single line buried in today’s Quarterly National Household Survey Report, the CSO just made the future a bit bleaker.

In February, the Live Register recorded an unemployment rate of 13.5 percent.

With the publication of the QNHS, the CSO has revised this figure (a regular occurrence).

Now the February Live Register records an unemployment rate of 14.6 percent.

There’s a lot of other data in the QNHS report:

• 28.8 percent of under-25s are unemployed (up from 25.9 percent in the previous quarter)

• 7.3 percent of the workforce is long-term unemployed (that’s over half of all unemployed). Two years ago it was 1.7 percent

• In the last quarter employment fell by -16,700. The average over the previous three quarters was -12,000.

• The participation rate is falling. In the last quarter it fell by -0.8 percent. The average quarterly fall over the previous two years was -0.2 percent.

• The labour force is shrinking. In the last quarter the labour force fell by -28,000. . The average quarterly fall over the previous two years was -10,500. Accelerating emigration?

• In the last budget the Government estimated that unemployment in 2011 would stabilise at 13.2 percent. In February it’s 14.6 percent and climbing.

14.6 percent.

Bleak.