Unemployment rate falls further to 4.3%

Michael Bolton

The latest figures released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) show unemployment decreased slightly in February.

New figures show the unemployment rate now stands at 4.3 per cent, down from 4.4 per cent in January.

The month's figures showed a 0.1 per cent drop in the rate of men who were unemployed, while the percentage for women remained unchanged in the month.

Youth unemployment is also down, with the percentage of people aged 15-24 unemployed being 10.2 per cent in February, down from 10.3 per cent in January.

The CSO found there were 116,500 unemployed across the country last month, down from 118,100 in January.

Last month's unemployment rate also showed an improvement on the same month last year, when overall unemployment was recorded at 4.6 per cent.