THE unemployment rate in the North of Ireland has seen its largest quarterly increase since October 2012 – rising to 3.7 per cent.
There were almost 2,000 confirmed redundancies in the past three months, according to official figures.
Employers must notify the department when making 20 or more employees redundant.
However, the figure doesn’t include those making fewer than 20 staff redundant, so is likely to be an underestimate.
In the six weeks from September to mid October, employers proposed laying off 1,720 staff.
There is a time lag between the proposed and confirmed redundancies as employers must give 30 days notice for between 20 and 99 redundancies and 90 days notice for more than 100 redundancies.
Over the latest 12-month period there were 8,860 proposed redundancies, an increase of 90% from the previous year and the second highest annual total since comparable records began.
The redundancies were in sectors like manufacturing, retail and transport.
“The unemployment in Northern Ireland is still below the UK level overall, but more worryingly long-term unemployment is much higher – approximately 35% of all unemployed have been out of work for more than a year compared to just about 16% in the UK,” said Gareth Hetherington, director of Ulster University’s economic policy centre.
“That is important because people who are out of work for a long period of time it’s hard for them to get back into work and into the labour market.”
Estimates suggest about 20% of people placed on the government’s furlough scheme still remain on it, Mr Heatherington told BBC Radio Foyle.
“Without a replacement for the job retention scheme, one would be very concerned about the prospects for those returning to work in November,” he added.
A total of 62,000 people in the North of Ireland were claiming unemployment related benefits in October – more than double the figure in March, but unchanged from September.
This is the fifth month in a row with more than 60,000 claimants and is similar to levels seen in 2012 and 2013.
The unemployment rate was 3.7% between June and August, which is 1.2% higher than the previous quarter and relates to a time when thousands of people in the North were still on the government’s job retention scheme.
New data from HMRC, released for the first time for the North of Ireland on Tuesday, shows a 1.7% fall in the number of paid employees between March and April.
Since then, there has been a small increase in the number of paid employees, but the September total remains 1.3% lower than in March.
The youth (16-24) unemployment rate was 11.8% but the rate is based on a smaller sample which may result in less precise estimates and should be used with caution when comparing with other regions.
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