Unemployment rises by 4.6 per cent in Mayo

Unemployment rises by 4.6 per cent in Mayo


Anton McNulty

The number of people unemployed in Mayo rose by 610 – almost 4.6 per cent – in January, bringing the number on the live register to 13,346. These figures, which were released by the Central Statistics Office, are well above the national increase of 3.1 per cent.
The largest percentage increase in the country was in the west, with a rise of 4.1 per cent compared to Dublin and the South-East, which both had the lowest increase at 2.6 per cent.
Achill was the only area in the county to buck the unemployment trend. It saw a decrease of three people signing on in January. The region most affected by unemployment was Castlebar, where the numbers signing on rose from 2,198 to 2,387 – an increase of 8.5 per cent. Ballinrobe saw a 6.2 per cent increase in unemployment with the figure for January at 1,115. Ballina remains the unemployment blackspot, with 3,283 people signing on in the north Mayo capital.
Of the 8,934 males signing on in the county, 1,750 or 19.5 per cent are under 25 years, while 20.7 per cent of the 4,412 females who are unemployed are under 25 years.
The Irish Small & Medium Enterprises Association (ISME) has described the latest redundancy figures as ‘dire’ and a bad start to the year. The organisation believes that further job losses are imminent, particularly over the next number of months.
Mark Fielding, the CEO of ISME castigated the Government for its lack of ideas on how to address the issue. “The country is in a state of flux, with 335 redundancies a day already being announced, following on from a disastrous 2009. Small business owners are indicating that this situation will deteriorate further, with many companies just about hanging on by their fingernails,” he said.