Ireland’s unemployment rate reaches new 13-year high of 11.9 percent

Irish unemployment hits 13-year high of 11.9 pct

DUBLIN — Ireland’s unemployment rate hit a 13-year high of 11.9 percent in June as a deepening recession pushed the welfare lines to record lengths, the Central Statistics Office reported Wednesday.

The report said the number of people claiming jobless benefits has nearly doubled over the past year to 418,592, an unprecedented high dating back to the foundation of the Irish state in 1922. The unemployment rate was 11.8 percent in May.

The unemployment rate last exceeded 11.9 percent in April 1996, when Ireland’s now defunct ‘Celtic Tiger’ economy was just starting to roar and Ireland’s labor force was much smaller. At the time, fewer than 300,000 people were claiming unemployment benefits.

Ireland now has the second-worst unemployment rate in the 16-nation bloc that uses the euro currency. Spain, which like Ireland was overly dependent on a property boom and construction jobs, has seen its labor market deteriorate even more quickly in recent months.

On the Net:

www.cso.ie/releasespublications/documents/labour(underscore)market/current/lreg.pdf