THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE signing onto the Live Register in February was up by 1.7 per cent on the same period of last year – but the figures are down on a monthly basis when seasonally adjusted.

Figures published this morning by the Central Statistics Office showed that there were 444,299 people signing on last month, which was up by 7,343 on February 2010 – compared to a year-on-year increase of 5,741 registered last month.

When seasonal adjustments were taken into account, however, the number was down by 1,700, and by 10,000 altogether since its peak in September of last year.

All of those decreases, the CSO said, had been recovered in males – with the number of women signing on, in the seasonally adjusted figure, up by 300.

The country’s unemployment rate now stands at 13.5 per cent, which is unchanged from January, but slightly up from the 2010 average of 13.3 per cent.

When organised by trade, those previously working in craft and related groups made up the largest chunk of those signing on, with almost 26 per cent of those on the Live Register coming from those fields, followed by plant and machine operatives at 16 per cent.

There are now over 41,000 long-term male claimants of state benefits, a figure up by 51.5 per cent on the same time from last year. The comparable increase for women, whose figures were up by 53.6 per cent, brought the number of long-term female recipients above 15,000.

Irish nationals account for 82.2 per cent of those signing on.