1m people either on Live Register or getting Covid-related payment last month
Just over 1 million people were either on the Live Register or received Covid-related payments last month, according to figures from the CSO.
It is a 13% decrease on the total figure in May.
In June, 220,871 people were on the Live Register. Last month that figure stood at 225,662.
The number of people under 25 on the Live Register has also increased from last year.
There are currently 29,579 people aged 25 and under on the Live Register, 8,301 more than 12 months ago.
The number of people on the Pandemic Unemployment Payment and the Temporary Wage Scheme have both decreased from the previous month.
In June there were 438,933 people on the Pandemic Unemployment Payment and there were 382,018 on the Temporary Wage Scheme.
In May, those figures stood at 543,164 and 451,652 respectively.
CSO statisticion Catalina Gonzalez explained that the Liver Register and Covid-payment figures were separate as the the Covid-payments are “short-term in nature.”
She said: “The majority of those whose income from employment has been affected due to Covid-19 are currently being facilitated through the Covid-19 Pandemic Unemployment Payment (438,933) which is administered by the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection (DEASP).
“A smaller cohort are currently being facilitated through the Revenue Temporary Covid-19 Wage Subsidy Scheme (382,018).
“These emergency payments are not captured in the traditional methodology of the Live Register which is a historical series that captures the number of claimants for Jobseekers Benefit (JB)/Jobseekers Assistance (JA).
“Furthermore, Covid-19 payments are currently viewed as short-term in nature, with an expectation that those in receipt of such payments may return to work or may subsequently be considered for JB/JA.
“As it would not be statistically beneficial or valid to break the current Live Register series to try and capture these temporary measures, it has been decided to compile the Live Register data for June 2020 in the traditional way and provide separate details of Covid-19 payments.
“This approach preserves the continuity of the traditional Live Register series from what is a short-term emergency intervention while at the same time providing transparency around the impact of Covid-19.”
Commenting on today’s published figures, Ms Gonzalez said: "The unadjusted Live Register total for June 2020 is 220,871. When seasonal effects are taken into account, the seasonally adjusted Live Register total for June 2020 was 213,700 which was a decrease of 14,200 from May 2020.
"Outside of the traditional Live Register, in the last week of June 2020, 438,933 people were in receipt of the Pandemic Unemployment Payment while 382,018 persons received the Temporary COVID-19 Wage Subsidy Scheme in June 2020.
“A total of 1,002,470 persons were either on the Live Register for June 2020 or received either the Pandemic Unemployment Payment or the Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme in June 2020.
“This number is not the total of the three schemes, as there is some overlap between them due to the different frequency of the payments, and the fact that some people who are included on the Live Register but not receiving a payment, might be in receipt of either the Pandemic Unemployment Payment or the Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme.”
