Unemployment Figures Soar

Date Published: 07-Aug-2008

GALWAY’S unemployment situation continues to worsen – new figures show the number of people joining the dole queues has surged by 1,000 in the past month alone and spiralled by more than 3,500 in the past year.

The latest Central Statistics Office figures reveal that the dole queues swelled across Galway at a rate of around 33 each day over the past month. The city has taken the brunt of the job losses in the past month but the employment crisis has also resulted in large increases in people signing on in towns such as Ballinasloe, Tuam, Clifden Gort and Loughrea.

Live Register figures for July show that 13,934 people in the county are signing-on, which represents an increase of 994 since June – and a jump of 3,534 in the past year.

This represents a 34 per cent increase on last year and a jump of 7.6 per cent between June and July of this year.

The CSO figures show that during July of this year there were 1,363 unemployed in Ballinasloe compared to 987 in July 2007; the rise in Clifden this month was 14 bringing the total to 751 compared to 602 last year; Loughrea showed an increase of 105 to 1,073 last month compared with…