Irish Unemployment Rate Rose to Highest in Six Months in July

Ireland’s unemployment rate rose to the highest in six months in July as government austerity measures weighed on spending and business activity in the services industry slowed.

Unemployment climbed to 14.3 percent from 14.2 percent in the previous month, the Central Statistics Office in Cork said on its website today. The number of claimants on the unemployment register increased 1,500 to 447,900 from June on a seasonally adjusted basis.

Ireland’s jobless rate has tripled since the property boom collapsed in 2008 and Europe’s worst banking crisis forced the country to accept a bailout. Total tax receipts for the first seven months of the year rose 8.6 percent, the government said yesterday, as it implemented austerity measures to cut the budget deficit.

The number of long-term unemployed increased by 45,508 in the year through July, bringing the share of those on unemployment benefits for a year or more to 40.4 percent, according to today’s statement.

Redundancies fell 10 percent from a year earlier in July and were down 24 percent for the January-July period on a cumulative basis, Ireland’s labor ministry said separately today.

Business activity in Ireland’s services industry slowed in July as new orders declined, according to the Markit Economics NCB Stockbrokers services purchasing managers’ index. The index recorded a figure of 51.7, compared with 52.4 in June. Anything above 50 marks an expansion.

To contact the reporter on this story: Finbarr Flynn in Dublin at fflynn3@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Colin Keatinge at ckeatinge@bloomberg.net