THE NUMBER OF people signing on the Live Register fell by 2,500 in June bringing the seasonally adjusted number of people signing on to 422,900.

New figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) today show in unadjusted terms there were 435,357 people singing on in June of this year representing a fall of 16,617 in the year to date.

Seasonal adjustment of the figures is a statistical method of removing certain seasonal events and trends which would cause a swing in statistics. The seasonally adjusted figure provides a better indication of the overall trend of people signing on the Live Register.

The CSO  figures today mean that the standardised unemployment rate is 13.6 per cent, down from 13.7 per cent in May. However, the Live Register is not designed to measure unemployment.

The latest Quarterly National Household Survey showed that Ireland’s unemployment rate was 13.7 per cent in the first quarter of this year with 1,845,600 people in work.

Jobs Minister Richard Bruton welcomed the figures released today, saying that it was the 12th month in a row that Live Register numbers had shown a fall.

But, he said, more work needed to be done: “We need to do more in this space,” he told TDs in the Dáil earlier.

Read: Over 26 million people in the EU were unemployed last month

May: Same number of women but 700 fewer men sign on in May