2/02/2011: Live Register for January

Live Register was out today for January with some positive news. The headline figure shows a seasonally adjusted decline in LR of 6,900. Unadjusted, LR rose 5,598 over the same month. It's hard to argue just how accurate are seasonality adjustments off the trend line, but let's stick to seasonal figures, so we can at least feel somewhat better about our predicament.

Charts below shows the slight decline in LR-implied rate of unemployment and the drop in LR itself:
So LR-implied unemployment rate is down from 13.6% in December to 13.4% in January.

Average weekly dynamics are looking pretty strong (in part, these are due to 4 weeks month - December, for example covered 5 weeks):
Monthly rate of change:
Also looks strong.

These are all headlines so far. Now, let's dig a little deeper:
Number of LR signees who are non-Irish nationals rose 1,882 to 78,527 in January 2011 - an increase of 2.46% mom and a decline of 3.52% yoy. Number of Irish nationals on LR rose 3,716 in January 2011, a rise of 1.03%mom and 2.42%yoy. So as chart above clearly shows, the two series are moving in the opposite directions. There were 4.64 Irish nationals on LR per each non-Irish national in January 2011. The same number for January 2010 was 4.37.

Another alarm bell is ringing for the increasing number of those in part-time and occasional employment (presumably not all happy to undertake less than full employment). This number rose from 82,058 in December 2010 to 83,232 in January 2011, with monthly increase of 1.43% and a year on year rise of 8.29%.