Ireland Jobless Rate at 12.9%

Wexford has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country according to the latest figures from Census 2016. Last Thursday the Central Statistics Office released the fourth in the series of 13 publications from the census, RTE reported. The report focuses on the socio-economic aspects of the census such as employment, occupation and education, as well as health, disability and caring. The figures show that Wexford has an unemployment rate of 16.6% compared to the average unemployment rate of 12.9%. Longford has the highest unemployment rate of 19.6% followed by Donegal, Carlow, Louth and Wexford. Dun Laoghaire Rathdown has the lowest rate of unemployment at 7.4%. Nationally the average rate of unemployment fell by 6.1% since 2011 from 19% to 12.9%. An unemployment rate of 16.6% for Wexford means that at the time of census 2016 there were 11,478 unemployed. Census 2016 uncovered three unemployment blackspots in Wexford which had an average unemployment rate of 31.1% compared to the average county rate of 16.6%.